The movie "Fisherman's Diary" was created in Cameroon and directed by Anna Jonescott. He won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film unofficially because he did not register as a nominee.
The film takes place in a poor fishing village in Cameroon, where ignorance dominates. There is a school for children of all ages, where mostly boys and a few girls study, because in their opinion education is not important and even corrupts and harms livelihoods.
This place is home to the fisherman Solomon (Kang Quintus) and his daughter Ika (Faith Fidel) and the sick mother, who passes away and they are left alone. Ika, a lovely 12-year-old girl, extremely hardworking, helps her father with everything - from selling the fish to arranging the house, cooking, cleaning and everything else that is needed. He compliments her and is very pleased with her, until she comes to him with the idea - her desire to learn.
Ika does not know, but here she touched on a very sensitive point in Salomon. Her mother, Barbara, also wanted to study and did. Since then she has changed a lot, become a snob, mocked Salomon, stopped helping him and asked him to serve her. There are flashbacks in which we see Salomon's bad memories of his wife. He suffered and was humiliated, so he swore it would not come back with Ika.
But, she is determined to learn, and turns out to be gifted as well. She goes to school and through the window sees how the teacher is teaching the students and absorbing the material. At first it is not felt, but when she answers the teacher's question that no student has been able to answer outside the classroom, it attracts the teacher's attention.
When she comes to the teacher's house to sell her fish, she asks her difficult questions and Ika answers them all correctly. She recognizes her talent and is even willing to help her. Ika comes to her with a prospect kept by her mother, in which it is written about Malala Yousafzai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for the youngest. She inspires her. She asks the teacher to read what is written there and also learns about the story of Malala, who survived a bullet fired in her head, which became an influential world.
Salomon decides to prevent Ika from studying at any cost. He loves her very much, but when he finds out about her relationship with the teacher, he hits her hard. He later tries to heal the wounds and apologizes for the suffering he caused her.
Solomon is in close contact with his ignorant, cruel, poor brother Lucas (Cosson Chinopo), who owes a lot of money to the local cruel rich. Instead of repaying his debt, he devises an original and terrible idea - to marry Ikea and thus write off his debt. He sells the idea to Salomon, who has given up control of his daughter and voluntarily dared to learn, as a transfer of control to someone else and strong. Although she is only 12 years old, there is no other choice.
The scene of the wedding and then the rape, there is no other way to call it, the joy and happiness of the "groom" and the terrible pains of Ica are very strong. She decides to run away, turns to her father for help and he refuses and refers her to her husband. But, when the groom and his partner come looking for Ica, they confront Salomon and his brother, it turns out that his daughter is a victim of his brother's dubious and terrible deal with his creditors.
In fact, Salomon did not want Ika to learn and educate because of the fear that she would be smarter than him, but feared that her behavior would change and she would be arrogant and disrespectful to the people around her. He did not want the difficult experience with his wife to come back and adversely affect his relationship with his daughter.
Ika proves herself in the national knowledge competition in which she participated and won. From there she just took off. The ending is exciting and optimistic. Ika manages to fulfill her vision after excelling in higher education and helps the weak and is an example of self-fulfillment, proving that if you insist enough and do not give up despite the difficulties, you succeed in achieving the goal.
A highly recommended, exciting film, with added value. There are talented people all over the world, even in the most remote places, who can make a difference and change.
Great play by all the players, especially by Faith Fidel and Kang Quintus. The spectacular photography and music that accompanies the film are also commendable.
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