Grue – Traditional wooden cranes for the boats

As a source of existence, the unique art of building Grue wooden cranes for the boats on the Northwest coast of Istria has developed. They are an ingenious way of raising the boats above the sea surface and storing them on wooden poles - grues. The method of making grue was passed down through the generations within the local fishing community and has been preserved to this day. They were built individually or in series. Around the coast of Umag Adriatic Sea is the shallowest, rocky, and in places where there were no naturally protected coasts and safe harbours. Fishermen had to ingeniously shelter and protect their boats (most often wooden boat called Batana) from the strong southwest wind Garbin, which normally threatens and destroys Northwest Istrian coasts and ports. This is the film about local fisherman, their community and disappearing tradition. It is a story of a symbiosis between the Grue and Batana, as well as between the fisherman and their fishing stock.