This 90-Year-Old Man From Bali Was Once Proud of His Fishing Skills — Now, All He Catches Is Plastic

“I want the world to be like it used to be,” demands Wayan Nyo, the 90-year-old fisherman from Bali. He was just a child, about 10 years old, when he started learning the art of fishing. Ever since, fishing has become his life's purpose. Each time he caught a fish, happiness reverberated through the entire ocean. Even till today, he spends his days stepping into the deep blue Indonesian waters, except that when he emerges, his pouch is crammed with fragments of plastic rather than fish. Capturing the broken-hearted transition of the Indonesian waters, Pixar's genius Director-Producer Dana Frankoff released a short film, Voice Above Water, showcasing Nyo as the protagonist.

Nyo lives with his family in a hut sitting somewhere in a fishing village on the coast of Indonesia, one of the first places where humans set their feet around 45,000 years ago. Despite being faint in economics, Nyo lives a life drenched in spirituality and culture. He meditates on the beach, playing suling, the traditional Balinese flute carved in bamboo. The ocean is his life. Catching fish, his favorite play. “I am the happiest when I am close to the oceans,” he says, according to the translated subtitles appearing at the bottom of the screen.

“I feel what might be happening in the water, and I give it a try,” he jumps from the boat wearing underwater goggles and plunges into the deep teal waters. He swirls and swims with the undertow, becoming a fish himself. However, like every blockbuster film, a villain has sneaked inside his happy story too. Instead of pursuing his passion for fishing, today he has to survive by collecting plastic trash from the ocean. The present-day Bali, according to the film, is threatened by plastic pollution.

Presented by Turning Tides Films and Baliprod Films in collaboration with Frankoff, the film has won several awards, including the First Time Filmmaker Award at the 2021 International Ocean Film Festival and Best Short Documentary at the 2021 San Luis Obispo Film Festival, per SurfRider. As it delves into Nyo’s daily life, it records the haunting dolefulness that the island is experiencing these days. Nyo recalls the time when he was a teenager. “There were so many fish. I’d be so happy to see all the fish. I remember the excitement I had when I was fishing."

“I’d catch live big fish,” he says, describing that he had to drag the fish by hand to the shore because the boat was too small. But nowadays, he says, he doesn’t catch big fish anymore, not even fish to say the least. “When I thought I caught a fish, it turned out to be plastic. I got mad,” he grumbles in a gruff voice, sitting inside his hut. “I got so angry. I see people throwing trash in the ocean. I bet they don’t understand the damage and pollution they are causing.”

Today, he says, he is worried about plastic pollution because “someday it will cover and ruin our ocean.” At night, he sits beside a lamp, whose flame is flickering in the coastal breeze. He laments that all his fishermen friends have passed away, and more than that, the fish have disappeared. “I want my island back to how it was before,” he claims with a fierce passion.

“If the ocean ends up getting ruined, I would be so angry.

I will stop worrying about the ocean once I die.”

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