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If the new documentary by Austrian filmmaker Hupert Sauper was pure fiction, people would left the theatre with a feeling of disbelief. Sadly, the tale of DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE is harsh reality. It tells about the struggle for survival of the fishermen around Lake Victoria in Tanzania where 'a little experiment' in the 1960s turned out into a complete disaster for the local people.

Some 40 years ago, the enormous Nile perch (which reaches up to two metres in length) was experimentally introduced into the lake but soon the voracious predator wiped out practically all other life. The fishermen who used to make a living by going out fishing the various species soon became obliged to work for the Nile Perch filet factories, which are called 'models of economic development' by EU-commissioners.

The reality however is that the fish factories sell the filets directly to Europe, making them too expensive for the locals to buy. So once the filets have been removed, the population is left with the decayed, discarded fish carcasses which they dry and use as food. Sauper's film turns into apocalyptic horror when he shows us how toddlers walk among the rotting fish whilst the maggots wriggle around the bare feet and the toxic ammonia gas blinds the impoverished people. This is the real truth behind the nice Nile Perch filet from Tanzania which is sold at your first world supermarket and eaten by two million Europeans every day.

So while so much fish is exported abroad, Tanzania itself is struggling to avoid famine. Fishermen spend their free time with prositutes who also serve Western businessmen and sinister Russian cargo plane pilots at the bars. H.I.V. infection rages through the region. Street children burn scraps of Styrofoam fish packing material so they can inhale the fumes, and fight with one another over meager portions of donated food. Globalization feeds the lucrative foreign markets while the locals starve to death.

To make things worse, the huge ex-Soviet cargo planes who come daily to collect the filets bring Kalashnikovs and ammunitions for the uncounted wars in the dark center of the continent. That's where the real money lies. This booming multiniational industry of fish and weapons is a haunting reminder of the consequences of capitalism and a deeply disturbing portrait of ordinary people who become the victim of the endless pursuit of profit from the Western world. Hupert Sauper has made a devastating, fascinating and very imaginative film.

You owe it to yourself to go watch DARWIN'S NIGHTMARE.