The Elversphere uses the site of the only significant juvenile eel fishery in the US, Maine, as the entry point to a multidimensional web of human-eel relations.

The perspectives of fishermen–those closest to the eel’s origins–connect with multiple human and non-human actors across the globe. Each spring, translucent juvenile eels reach coastal waters from the Caribbean to Canada after journeying thousands of miles from breeding grounds in the Sargasso Sea. Under cover of darkness, when temperature and tides are right, these tiny “glass eels” depart saltwater and head upstream, becoming “elvers” and beginning a decades-long maturation process before their final return to the ocean.

Driven by culinary tradition and growing market demand, as well as an inability to viably breed captive eels, the value of wild, baby American eels can exceed $2,000 per pound. Eager fishermen pull migrating glass eels from rivers, then pass them through a chain of dealers, buyers, and a forced “migration” by air transport before they arrive at Asian aquaculture operations. The film will surface this “eel assemblage” by presenting a diversity of scenes and characters that are all connected by the eel. Activists help eels bypass dams. Tribal fishermen pursue conservation and assert sovereignty. Scientists conduct research to understand the remaining mysteries around the eel life cycle, ecology, and population health. Researchers strive to achieve controlled reproduction at scale. Chefs teach centuries-old techniques to apprentices. Entrepreneurs attempt to improve aquaculture processes, fishermen strive to provide for their families, regulators enact measures intended to protect eel populations, and smugglers seek to evade enforcement.

These unexpected interrelationships prompt critical questions, including, “What spawns relationships of care between humans, and between different species?”