Grants & Awards

About the Film:

Summer is coming, and for Maycol and Bryan, this will be their first season hunting sharks. Maycol and Bryan are inseparable friends, in Greytown, Nicaragua. Their days spent playing and hunting small animals together will soon be finished; this summer will mark the end of their childhood and an abrupt journey into adulthood. Juan, Maycol’s father, a hunter and former soldier during the Sandinista revolution is in charge of introducing both children to the trade. Maycol and Bryan will perhaps be two of the last shark hunters of Greytown. The trade disappears along with the species. Opportunities for young people in Greytown are scarce and drug trafficking seems to be the most risk-free job in a town visibly scarred, by rusting ammunitions and burnt out houses, by the recent war. This is a world in which Maycol and Brian will have to find their own path.

About the Filmmakers:

Alejo Hoijman (Director) - Alejo started working in the film industry when he was 19 years old with Fernando Pino Solanas. He studied Arts at the University of Buenos Aires and was the first president of the Argentinean Documentary Association. His first documentary Dinero Hecho en Casa, supported by Jan Vrijman Fund from IDFA, competed in many international film festivals including IDFA, Silverdocs and the International Competition from Documenta Madrid. Unidad 25, his second feature documentary, received the support from Jan Vrijman Fund and Ibermedia. It received the Best Film Award at the Buenos Aires and Guadalajara Film Festivals. Also it was awarded at Austin International Film Festival. The Shark’s Eye is his third feature documentary film.

Luis Angel Ramirez (Producer) – Luis holds degrees in audiovisual communication, fine arts and advertising. He is director of two production companies: Astronauta Producciones and Imval Producciones, based in Madrid. He participated in Cannes 2007 Producers on the Move, and is a member of ACE, EAVE, and the Spanish and the European Film Academy. In addition he is a frequent expert for institutions like CORFO and FONDART in Chile, and France’s Cinema of Three Continents. He has co produced with France, Germany, Chile, Argentina, Costa Rica, and Poland.

Gema Juarez Allen (Producer) – Gema did Postgraduate studies in Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester and at the University of Rio de Janeiro. She also studied filmmaking at the National Film School (ENERC –INCAA). Gema worked as an Assistant Producer at the BBC Manchester, Coordinator of DocBsAs in Argentina, and she was Head of Production at Habitación 1520 Producciones between 2003 and 2008. In 2009 she launched her own production company Gema Films. She has been a Sundance Documentary Fund grantee twice and received the ARTE Produire Au Sud Award in 2008 for upcoming producers. She has produced over ten films, many of them international co productions, and the films she produced have been awarded at BAFICI, IDFA, Locarno and Al Jazeera, among other important film festivals.