Red Coral from Corsica documentary of Patrick Voillot

[Music] Minerva the goddess of the sea asked her brother Perseus to kill the Gorgon who had the power to transformed everyone who crossed his path into stone undaunted the young God as he approached the monster looked away and beheaded him by surprise his blood flowed into the immaculate sea and turned into a gem and precious mineral thus was born the red coral in the depths near an island in the Mediterranean Corsica [Music] [Music] Fred Samuel began as a jeweler his parents lived in Argentina and he lived in France at the beginning of the century I see quite soon he opened his own shop near the Place Vendome he clearly had a great passion for beads since the beginning fred's has always offered a lot of creativity and extensive expertise in the field of beads but mr. Fred Samuel had another passion which was the sea he was always looking for subjects that inspired him around the scene especially marine cables which initiated a favorite of the house called fox10 Durham isn't SEPA Fox Edith the glass with us the combination of marine cables and gold in parallel he looked at material such as coral he was passionate about beads and coral [Music] the ferry summer it is quite recently that we found in the stocks of the store a suitcase of coral a suitcase containing absolutely beautiful beads you can see some examples on the table here did you buy it was red coral from the Mediterranean Corsica the Mediterranean island jewel is home to one of the most beautiful coral in the world it has been coveted throughout history around six hundred thousand years before Christ we find the first signs of human presence and more recently the Greeks founded a trading post different periods succeeded the Romans Byzantines Moors and the Genovese have all left their marks this mountain population was the crucible of strong personalities who rocked the world pascale Paulie who gave it its independence for a time and of course Napoleon Bonaparte who ruled France in the 19th century [Music] today it is developing its economy while trying to keep its culture tourism is its main activity but they still practice cork harvesting animal husbandry in the mountains with the famous brokey Oh cheap cheese and dried meats Corsicans are masters at making knives in memory of the famous Vendetta as for the Mediterranean Sun it helps bear a grape that gives rich wines in the four corners of the island [Music] a key figure of this island is the strong character of its people who particularly love to hunt a local game wild boar well if we do the Gulf of porto-vecchio without any exaggeration was a cornucopia it was said jokingly that we could go down the mountain with a piece of bread in hand because we knew we would find something to eat with it when we went in the water there were clams there were Clovis there were the famous oysters we went in row boats one was rowing and the other one was at the bow with a long stick that ended in a horseshoe we lowered the stick with the iron at the bottom and you had to have the right gesture you had to push and turn the oyster and pull it in in one swift move like this sometimes when the oyster happened that the bottom of the oyster was buried in the red colored sand and there were some who said it's coral it's coral alas it was not coral because the bottom of the oyster was always tinged with red hue Romeo Corrado there was an expression that said it is red as coral we spoke about it the way one can speak of gold it was something rare hey coral here's a coral pendant and it seems that the coral from Bonifacio is a quality that is out of the ordinary [Music] the streams in Bonifacio are crossed by currents rich and organic particles that constitute the food of the coral this abundance gives it exceptional quality specialists say that a simple flick on the branch makes a clear sound that is in a middle signature of this usual source [Music] for centuries the Mediterranean was the cradle of great civilizations that have used revered and distributed red coral to the Orient India Asia and Africa it's fishing remained archaic for centuries it is only very recently thanks to the evolution of Technology that a few scuba diving pioneers have modernized its gathering my name is Sir John view and I began to fish coral in Italy I started living like this and then I bought a small boat and then after a bigger one and then we did not have sonar as we had run peeny that's to say that we had a big rope that was hung to a piece of scrap metal we hung it on the back of the boat and pulled it across the bottom of the water when it clung on to something we went down to see what there was so sometimes we had pieces of rock with coral or with Noor coral but we would never went too deep we went to 40 meters maximum when we arrived in the area of Bonifacio the first time I dove I didn't find a single piece of coral at the time we were the first to dive and did not find any coral even though it was everywhere but I found a piece of coral and a point of rock there and I told my friend over there there's a little bit let's try to go that was already at 70 meters he dives he runs the rock and there was a giant cliff maybe 10 or 15 meters high and a hundred meters long and there were branches that were like that it was America it really was America Oh Nicholas econsent afterwards we started like that and then continued the most beautiful coral fishing dive I'm certainly the one who made it at the time when I was in sea Tyvek yeah I began it was the second year and I took a rock it was 25 meters and it was full of coral there were branches I touched the rock and branches came up under my arm what links it was so for 25 meters I filled my basket then I got back I emptied my cart and then I went back down and it was like that I filled the basket I filled the basket I'm sure I must have had at least 70 kilos of Coral if you want to go out fishing with someone and go out to sea you must go out with him in your Hey he will definitely take you I fished quarrel with his father at the time where the fuel pump is on the port of Bonifacio [Music] not that anyway my name is Lim yo hey I'm a diver a coral fishermen from Bonifacio been doing this for 14 years when I was a kid I went out often with my father that's what made me want to do this job I think there's my brother who worked with me he had an accident in the 90s and he stayed at the bottom there are lots of coral fishermen who stay at the bottom we're talking about approximately 50% of coral fishermen who have died because it's a dangerous business there are a lot of diving levels to respect and if there's any sort of technical problem any problem at all failure of air a regulator that breaks we cannot emerge if we surface immediately without leveling off we die so I decided to stop completely for my family for my mother so I started to rent road bikes and I was there not far from the boats and I could see the boats depart every day and I was a little bit bitter you see and I realized that my life was not turrent by my life is the sea here she gave me everything the sea but she also took everything back in a way it can give you all the joy you want but also pain after that it was stronger than me and I returned to work despite my mother and my whole family who is against it I'm a I'm a little deaf immediately come to us [Music] [Music] my father when he first came here it was almost pristine he did catch ten kilos at each dive now it's 300 400 500 grams painfully collected sometimes a kilo so it becomes difficult especially since we're trying to harvest coral that is big enough so we don't touch the little ones we leave them so if we reach that a rock that's white with coral but it's all very small we leave it and don't touch it we try to choose a colonies most beautiful coral branches that's the way it works that's why when I dive on rocks that my father worked on 20 or 25 years ago I can still find some coral and I leave some myself for future generations will be willing to fish for coral red coral is white at the bottom because when you approach the rock at least from afar after approaching we can see that it's red but it looks white because the corals polyps are out actually from afar it looks white but if we call them flowers they're not flowers they're an animal but it looks like a flower at the bottom of that I liken it a bit to that from afar it looks like a small garden a garden of coral [Music] red coral has been described by Cuvier the great naturalist of the 18th century as part of the corral ium genus which is not the case with some other precious corals such as black coral do not try to compare it to warm weather corals either very porous these develop at shallow depths and form barriers and add holes the coral fisherman needs to have their own Contin ground whose location remains secret [Music] there here we see the break of the rock we clearly see that there are holes in it from 68 to 70 meters it's perhaps even going to drop a little to 72 here's still that little rock there a small tiny rock to the sand there are 72 meters and the coral you find it between what and what depths it's found at 60 meters now we're no longer allowed to dive in an area which is that set at 50 to 60 meters we cannot touch it anymore so it's often at 65 to 90 to 100 meters there I threw a stone in to find the rock so we see with the sonar when to throw it we throw the top of the rock then we tag it with a boy and the with the long rope we leave it so that we can see the direction of the current you see so the current counts from out of teen therefore it's not at random we already mark the orientation with the rock by the Sun and then later with the sonar it shows where there are caves if there are crevices and with experience and with a little bit of luck we know what we find we have a new piece of equipment they're called ROV it's a motorized robot that goes underwater so that we can find the bottom before diving so that we don't die for nothing there's a lot a lot of diving for nothing often it's Keppel that is to say zero nothing the coral fisherman is equipped with multiple wetsuits to protect against the cold indeed the temperature of the water passes quickly from the surface at 26 degrees to 12 degrees at 80 feet deep to descend rapidly to the bottom in addition to the weight belts he puts in his basket a huge block of stone [Music] a few meters from the destination he needs to remove this block from the basket and throw it out so as to slow down his speed thus avoiding hitting the bottom here I cannot take my eyes off him I must constantly monitor the bubbles the bubbles accelerate whenever he exhale Xin to the regulator when they're concentrated in one place that means he's not moving he stays put sometimes it can be distorted because depending on his depth the bubbles can be swept away by the current so we have to anticipate that relative to the current and locate him by the rise of the bubbles on the surface [Music] [Music] upon arrival at the bottom time presses the coral fishermen must begin his harvest he has only one quarter of an hour to collect the maximum amount of red coral all material must be absolutely reliable during the dive a commonplace occurrence like a breakdown of the flashlight would be fatal for the harvest and would involve the loss of a full day's work at this depth brightness is very low and colors are uniform it is impossible without a light supply to distinguish the red coral the diver absorbed in his search should nevertheless be extremely attentive to the time elapsed he must pay attention to under currents that can take him drifting very far from his original location a calm sea at the surface is not necessarily so at such depths stocks of red coral have declined significantly but ironically we cannot say that it is a species nearing extinction indeed this body becomes fertile when it reaches a certain size of a few centimeters the coral fishermen do not take these small branches that have no commercial value thus in some regions at lower depths they grow in great quantities coral reproduction happens as there are two separate sexes it's impossible to distinguish them with the naked eye but there are male and female colonies after internal fertilization small ciliated larvae will attach to a wall forming a small hill from which will appear the first polyp coral growth is extremely slow it's difficult to date the age of a branch but it's obvious that a colony that's over a kilo and weight is undoubtedly several centuries old the federal you can have bad encounters certainly it's happened and so we have to have means of persuasion or repulsion or even a weapon to stop it when we're down there we're talking about sharks there are more and more sharks present in our Mediterranean waters which are warming more and more 15 minutes have passed the harvest must end the coral fisherman opens the lift parachute which he attaches to his basket full of precious scarlet branches this is the sign for the captain that the gathering is complete now we must act quickly because the long climb back allowing for the divers decompression begins he passes him the hose which is an endless tube a sort of umbilical cord linking him to the boat it consists of an air supply hot water and a microphone for communicating with the captain all this will help the coral fishermen to take more than two and a half hours of leveling off and waiting at different depths a process vital to avoid an embolism which is the main cause of fatal accidents in this trade [Music] gible sorry me tomorrow sir fetching quarrel when you're alone it's suicide I think if people do they shouldn't admit it proudly and then it's against the rules for professional diving at 70 or 75 meter dabs were subject to narcosis and for those who are not used to it after 10 or 15 meters there in narcosis it's a super saturation which is due to nitrogen in the blood so that's to say they no longer really have any concept of reflexes sometimes when you see a fish next to you you'd like to emulate it you withdraw your regulator you breathe in the water and drown that's happened often the way we're equipped and organized on board we've managed to perform without having any accidents then if there are really rough seas we use what you see here the decompression chamber so the diver sends me a signal saying prepare the chamber in three minutes he comes straight back up to the surface and enters the chamber immediately it's not much when I arrived it was a small rock like that I saw see fans in the distance I approached and the cliff was on another side it fell for about 15 meters and was super super beautiful there were holes caves not much coral but it was beautiful that's some little coral the fishing season runs between May and October during which weather conditions are favorable the coral fisherman performs hundreds of dives per year they're not all successful he often comes up to the surface with an empty basket [Music] my name is John marine Domenici I'm an agent of the National Park in charge of the scandola natural reserve project as you can see scandal is a living laboratory scientific activity is very important here on the coral today for the past five years the scandola reserve team has been working with the CN FS in Marseille on an issue that we've noticed since 2003 since the Mediterranean began to warm because of the big heat wave that we had we noticed that there was a lot of necrosis at the canadair and gorgonian coral now between 15 and 25 meters there's a lot of warming and necrosis happens often so the goal and the challenge was to remove the coral and to take it beyond 30 meters in depth to make it out of reach for the warming of the Mediterranean so this method was developed by the CNS it allows to remove the coral and place it in a place where it's out of reach of the hot waters it's a world first in this respect so in situ in the scandola reserve the CNRS teams come twice a year to see the animal behavior after this change since 2003 all's gone well the reactivity of the coral is positive and it's had normal growth in terms of diameter and length and each colony seems to be doing well coral as a resource is diminishing but we cannot say it's endangered today with this type of process we'll be able to relocate it this will be a longtime reserve at scandola it is a tool to show the way this sort of process could be done on a larger scale in the Mediterranean to launch a comprehensive policy for management of the Mediterranean and beyond just because there's Tom you my name is Roger Minnie Coney I'm a consultant in the marine environment scandola reserve was created in 1975 we decided to create a reserve that would combine protection for the sea and the land it's the first time in Corsica and probably in France that we are having a total protection of the sea bed while the regulation of fishing in the Mediterranean is very diverse it is true that it gives rise to a number of farms that are destroying the wildlife and environment with their fishing gear such as the cross of Saint Andrew which normally is not adopted but which are devices that are quite destructive so it's true that something needs to be done at the European level not without going as far as imposing a ban as was advocated by nongovernmental organizations like the WWF of Europe coral has always been a mystery since men have first used it they have asked about its nature we know that the use of coral existed 25 thousand years ago since it was found in a tomb in Wiesbaden in Austria squirty's the Greek scholar of the 1st century said it was a vegetable but as soon as they touched it it materialized into stone it was not until the 18th century when a scientist discovered the true nature of coral by taking branches and putting them in water he saw them agitate on the surface small animals and that's how the true nature of coral was discovered coral is a small bag shaped animal lives in a colony it takes the calcium in the water and builds a mineral skeleton a sort of skeleton group all of the small polyps live on the surface of this mineral skeleton there is a collective organization for all the acts of life for collecting food yeah you're not gonna use us you're poor land only - ho ho to executives they feed on plankton which are very small particles of plants and animals that live in seawater and are brought to them by the current and the movement of the sea the structure of coral is limestone but it stained red by iron oxide and is more or less tinted that is to say that the concentration of iron oxide is more or less important when it is in the coral when there is more iron oxide at his ox blood very red coral when there is less iron oxide it is slightly lighter red or red pink the parish of Porto Vecchio is preparing to celebrate its patron Saint John the Baptist and in this city of sea and salt the good st. John the Baptist was chosen by the ancients as the patron saint to watch over the entire population all those who arrived by sea in this city and all those who depart one could say that coral was used in our region as an instrument to Christianize society because it makes religious symbols that symbolise the Christian faith tonight when we go out into the streets with the image of John the Baptist you see we will make a stop in front of the door of the oldest church in the city facing the sea and we will invoke the name of John the Baptist la présence Endres et tu na vellum a new save Oklahoma batiste [Music] [Applause] dr. Timmy's own in every house there was a small piece of coral lying about veiled we'd have a piece of coral when babies were born they were not baptized so they would put coral in his hand it was a gesture that was made to protect from the evil eye when someone said something along the lines of oh this baby's so beautiful we would make this gesture and that is why it's reproduced here and it seems that before they used to think that little pieces of coral would ward off the evil eye [Music] [Applause] [Music] in Corsica the regional administration of maritime affairs in agreement with the Association of coral fishermen decided to limit their number to approximately 10 and put in place a system that does not allow harvesting of coral above 60 metres in depth [Music] Nadja clear Popovic you let a client I created the porto-vecchio choral lapidary about 30 years ago the difference in coral in Corsica is really the color everything has an amazing hue the quality can be very good very clear and also very bad not really a criterion today it affects price a bit of course there are very few dark red corals the most common are the color oils here in the center then there's the quality of the material and the quality of craftsmanship if coral is attacked by parasites they will leave a mark and the coral becomes excessively porous and can no longer make beautiful Baroque pieces or beautiful necklaces the highest quality work will be applied on beautiful coral and we will make smaller pieces with the smaller or damaged coral [Music] unfortunately there is also fake coral I can show you this coin for example it's called bamboo it's a white coral from the Pacific that's tinted red used extensively in jewelry and I think now is a great disservice to our profession oh sweet sorry mushy so kawaii key compen on the market we find a lot of this coral which is a natural coral it's precious but then it is polished and shined and varnished and comes from the Pacific at horns reef of course if we were using only Corsican coral we wouldn't be able to find balls like this a fourteen millimeters wide then of course there's red resin thousands of workshops in the south of Italy are forced to work with this in order to maintain their business that's one of the major concerns today in our profession we work with coral in our workshop and we import it to Torre Del Greco in Italy where a lot of coral from Corsica goes and is worked by different collaborators what I have to go there one of these days and if you're interested I can introduce you to our employees at Torre Del Greco when coral is out of water it is covered with a skin called Cohen chyme this organic matter is removed through washing prior to the sale of the branches by local fishermen why quarrel is bought in part by Neapolitans who after working it dispatch it all over the world critical value dispatching to the if they come out they come out here and they come almost every week [Music] in southern italy near naples torre del greco is a small city of a hundred thousand inhabitants at the foot of a su Vyas [Music] from the sixteenth century it was distinguished by its fleets and artisans who specialized in what they still call red gold which is none other than coral over 7,000 people visit this famous City from around the world for its art cameos carved on shells and its work on corals [Music] [Music] my name is Chris Enzo coglioni I'm a professor at the Art Institute of Torre Del Greco right each engraving on coral shells and cameos go in signaling GC Onizuka Rowley currently we're in the church of st. Mary of Constantinople historically the most important Church of Torre Del Greco it was founded in 1650 at the time Torre Del Greco was already having a fleet of coral a very large no fewer than 400 boats that went out and fished coral into the Mediterranean under APIs carried Corallo into the Mediterranean what is the origin of this church of st. Mary of Constantinople in the 15th century during a war between the Barbary pirates in the fisherman from Torre Del Greco they found a wooden statue now known as st. Mary of Constantinople preserved in the niche at the back of the church phimosis tagua santa maria di costantino holy at all men de nil in funda lackeys aneleanele nietzsche [Music] many faithful still come to pray at the feet of Our Lady of coral fishermen [Music] Antonina lazy morning show no narrated unit traditional familiar antica sorry my name is Antoni no DC money and I am an heir of an ancient family tradition the story of my family is intimately linked with the story of the coral because Torre Del Greco was a fishing reef Torre Del Greco it was Bartolomeo Martin who brought the first work of a coral in 1805 but already in the first century Pliny that's Roman geographer said that red coral was very common in India and this indicates that it existed for some centuries it was a subject of trade between the Mediterranean and India the work of coral was brought here by a Frenchman from Marseille Bartolomeo Marta in 1805 been a million progenitor gene when he asked for help from the Bourbons and received it and opened his first workshop throughout history coral has fascinated men and women of power [Music] my name is Claudette Joanna's I'm curator here at the National Museum of mesnick's Josephine will be remembered as very attractive woman but an absolute love for dresses and jewelry a love that was encouraged by her husband Napoleon who wanted Josephine to be the ambassador of luxury as well as all that could be produced in France for her it was not difficult to spend she had in her home here in Mademoiselle and in the two alluring large amounts of closet in which she had all these gorgeous dresses and also jewelry boxes where she kept this multitude of ornaments that were sumptuous diamonds rubies emeralds enamel but also coral money my every you see the kohai [Music] most of the jewels that were made were made in the workshops of Torre Del Greco [Music] there are roses that are mounted on rings and earrings these are interesting because there are fairly average size and therefore quite commercial these are roses that are cut entirely by hand and have a lot of relief unlike some that live fairly flat my name is Ferdinand o D'Amato and my profession is architect of coral we've been doing this business for three generations my grandfather fished coral then my father started to work it and finally I continued the work of my father with success I hope here's the coral as it is when it emerges from the sea these are the most beautiful branches of course it comes from Sardinia and Corsica in our case this came about at a time where there was a crisis of coral and our ancestors who fished in the reef finding no buyers began to work it in some ways it was imposed by the market this is the beginning of the story then other companies started always around the coral each one specializing in something else it looks easy but it takes a lot of experience to work the coral and each step involved requires a different person there are those who cut those who shape it those who bore holes and those who polish it these are very different tasks and it's rare to find someone who knows how to do them all [Music] we specialize in beads which is what sells the most for commercials or jewelry that you in my jewelry preview or when specific work requires that Pro find jewelry specific forms to mount into gold we need a reserve of coral supply because every month does not lend itself to fishing we need to use a stock when we're unable to fish we keep it in a warehouse but our stock is running out because there's been no fishing for several months para el corral cuando la pescado Roger aquinnah Biv DeVoe CD Condor coral khadija Remo the most uh for a reasonably surrender was discard chemically so no multi Michigan Rosa revision [Music] like a treasure Ferdinando de Matos reserve is hidden in an impenetrable chest with exceptional coral branches selected from the finest sources and stored for many years they seem to have lost their colors but nothing but a simple polishing will make them vibrant again after having shown you the raw coral as it emerges from the sea I'll show you the work on Pacific coral I'll show you a pink coral statue it's a beautiful coral called angel skin it's a work by one of what I believe to be the greatest sculptors of coral carlopa Latin [Music] my name is Henri de las and I'm the founder and president of comics company founded in 1961 in 1969 or 1970 I drew my first submarine which was then sent to Taiwan [Music] we had the opportunity thanks to the adventurous spirit of our patron to leave for seven months and work on the island of Taiwan to fish coral in the depths averaging 300 meters it was one of the most beautiful adventures of my life this was in 78 and 79 and we found coral branches that were 1 meter long or 1 meter 10 and the largest of which weighed 22 kilos there was a 25 kilo branch which is too large to be sold completely unique please and we couldn't get a good price for it so he brought it back it came by plane of course it landed here with us we'd never seen a flight before with comics I say this with pride but the next day the branch was gone [Music] yes or no I'm Alfonso Vitali o our company has passed on from father to son in the Dehlia family on my mother's side we are one of the leading companies in Torre Del Greco it's working with coral and cultured pearl trade with Asia we'll start by going back in time and I'll show you the quarrel among the oldest in the Mediterranean in Italia tormentas year discovered opportunity was caught in Italy on three fishing grounds which belonged to three cities Trapani Messina and ciacco this type of coral has a very specific color now we move on to a coral that we sell a lot of and that comes from the agencies and Japan in particular the colors are extremely bright red to orange or salmon or the la seine particulary including frequent on roofs or cheese or not unshown a or maybe your salmon out oh man you're gonna shoot then we move on to the most beautiful coral the angel skin del appellate Angelo well no Tiamo Legrand it's a little Lonnie yeah we can notice the large size of the beads which go from 14 to 20 to 25 millimeters for the central bar it is the size of the raw coral that allows for this type of work which would be impossible with the coral of the Mediterranean because the branches are too thin [Music] [Music] [Music] often confused with a plant it is at the boundary of the animal and the mineral the red gold of the Mediterranean a gift from the gods forever fascinating men tiny fragile in the midst of the immensity of the abyss [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Voillot Patrick

Views: 55,525

Rating: 4.7181573 out of 5

Keywords: documentary, gemmologist, gemstone, precious stones, gemmology, Patrick Voillot, pierre précieuse, jewelry, stone, movie, tv, frenchtv, jeweler, prices, million dollars, expedition, mine, mining, Place Vendôme, big blue, risk, diving, depths, blood of the sea, red coral, coral, Corsica, island, France, Bonifacio, crystalline, mineral, mineral skeleton, Perseus, fisherman, descending, passion, Torre del Greco, FRED

Id: SqWG9fsliD0

Length: 51min 24sec (3084 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 14 2019