FILM DOCUMENTARY

The Embrace of the Fish

Can a fish learn to cook? Why are deaf-blind people happy underwater? Are deaf-blind people a rare marine species forced to live on the surface? Juan de Dios and Carmen, Victoria and Marta, Cristian and Anabel, Clara and Virginia, and Jose Luis and Cristina are five pairs whose unique characteristic is that the former are deafblind individuals and the latter are the mediators who connect them to the outside world. They are life partners who spend their days at the Santa Ángela de la Cruz Center, near Gerena in Seville, the only residential center in Spain for people who are deaf-blind. In the coming weeks, they’re going to take on a challenge: they’ll be participating in a cooking contest, and they need to be ready for it.

The Santa Ángela de la Cruz Center is a unique facility in Spain and one of the few residential centers for people who are deaf-blind in the world. Juande, Victoria, Cristian, Carmen, José Luis, and others live there… and what makes them unique is that they are deafblind. Everyone loves water; they’re like deep-sea fish that interact with the surface using secret codes that are hard to decipher.