“There are three kinds of people: the living, the dead and those who go to sea.” — Aristotle
Peter Tangvald is like a character you might encounter in a novel by Jack London or Herman Melville: a Norwegian sailor who made his home on the high seas. He built his own boat and it was a thing of beauty, but he refused to put a motor on it, or even a radio. He lost his first wife to pirates. His second drowned. So he said. And the deaths didn’t stop there… In a way, Ghosts of the Sea is reminiscent of a true crime podcast. Except this one happens to be made by Peter’s daughter, Virginia, who’s clearly deeply moved by what she discovers as she pieces together an elusive story and comes to terms with the fate of her half brother, Thomas.
A haunting, artfully constructed documentary that unravels the myth of Tangvald’s romantic freedom, exposing a legacy of loss, suspicion and generational trauma.
Peter Howell, Toronto Star
A haunting exploration of fractured masculinity.
Courtney Smalls, POV magazine
Virginia Tangvald
Canada/France
2024
In English and French with English subtitles
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Credits
Screenwriter
Virginia Tangvald
Cinematography
Glauco Bermudez, Etienne Roussy
Editor
Elric Robichon
Original Music
Rémi Boubal
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