Research trip to southern Chile for new project

Thanks to a travel grant from the Swedish Art Grant Committee, I could travel to southern Chile to conduct research for an upcoming documentary about the salmon industry. For about a month I travelled around the "Los Lagos" region in the chilean Patagonia to learn about the impact of salmon farming in this beautiful region of Chile.

During the trip, I visited important hubs for salmon farming like Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt, as well as smaller, more remote villages in the Chiloé archipelago. I spoke with many people involved in the industry—divers, feed operators, unions, and even people sharing salmon farm stories on TikTok. Everyone had a different take on how the industry affects their lives.

One major issue is the dangerous work done by divers. Many of them used to fish for shellfish, but now they work for the salmon farms. Between 15 and 20 divers die every year because of unsafe working conditions.

This trip really helped me focus the direction of the film. The people I met are dealing with a tough reality—they need the jobs from the salmon farms, but those same farms are damaging the environment they’ve relied on for generations. As I move forward, I’ll be thinking carefully about how to tell their stories in an honest and respectful way, using both my own footage and archive material from surveillance cameras to show what really happens on the farms.