Sea of Shadows

Sea of Shadows (2019) is a documentary you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Austrian filmmaker Richard Ladkani.

The vaquita is the world's rarest marine mammal — fewer than a dozen were believed to survive when this film was shot. They're dying in gill nets set illegally in Mexico's Gulf of California, placed there to catch totoaba fish whose swim bladders fetch cocaine-level prices on the Chinese black market. The operation is run by cartels and transnational criminal networks. Ladkani follows undercover investigators, the Mexican navy, and environmental activists who are all, separately, trying to stop it.

This isn't a nature film. It's a crime investigation with a species on the clock. The machine driving the extinction is shown in full: corruption, organised crime, and international demand keeping it running. Stream Sea of Shadows online on iFILM.