Fishermen's Terminal," a documentary about the home of the North Pacific Fishing Fleet, is showing at this year's Seattle International Film Festival. Directed by prolific filmmaker and author B.J. Bullert, the one-hour film marks the end of a four-year project that started when the Port of Seattle decided to allow pleasure boats to moor at the working-man marina for the first time.
Depending on who's talking in the documentary, the 2001 decision was an example of class warfare and the gradual gentrification of Seattle, or it was a move to bring in extra money to a Port property that's seen better days since it was built almost a century ago at the northeastern edge of Magnolia.
"It's clear this issue of yachts touched a raw nerve down there," an unsurprised Bullert said. "Seattle has a very long history about issues of class and the haves and have-nots."
It's an issue Bullert is familiar with. Her last film, "Chief Seattle," traced the life of the much-abused American Indian, and she also produced three half-hour KUOW radio shows about "Skid Road," a term that originated in Seattle.
And Bullert ran into the perfect anchor source for the story about Fishermen's Terminal: Pete Knutson, a commercial fisherman at the marina, an anthropology professor and - many would say - a rabble-rouser who accused the Port of "declaring war on the working class."
Knutson is featured in much of the film as he birddogs Port officials, but interview subjects also include - among others - British author and yatchsman Jonathan Rabin, former Washington State Supreme Court Justice Phil Talmadge, Port CEO Mic Dinsmore, numerous Port Commissioners and Annu Mangat, a business reporter from the Daily Journal of Commerce.
The media covered the controversy extensively, and Bullert said she picked up on the fact that journalists were seeing that it was about more than just pleasure boats. "So in many ways, I was taking my lead from the press," she said.
Scrutiny on her part wasn't always welcome, according to Bullert, who said a Port document referred to her filming as "borderline harassment from the video lady." That reference was whited out, however, in a public-disclosure copy of the document she obtained later, Bullert added.
To be sure, at one point in the documentary, Port staff tried to prevent Bullert from filming an encounter between Knutson and staff in the Port's Fishermen's Terminal office.
Knutson's presence wasn't always welcome, either. That was especially clear in one segment when clearly irked Port Commissioner Paige Miller told Knutson she didn't know anything about a $50,000 Port study that recommended opening up Fisher-men's Terminal to office, retail and industrial uses.
The Heartland L.L.C. study was commissioned by lower-level Port staff, Miller insisted in the documentary. "It's not on the radar screen," she said of the recommended changes.
But the fact the study was commissioned at all made Bullert wonder what's really important to the Port of Seattle. "This business about priorities - that's basically what my film is about," she said.
It was also a question of priorities that led to Knutson getting kicked out of Fishermen's Terminal for selling processed seafood such as smoked or canned salmon, products reserved exclusively for sales at the Wild Salmon seafood store at the terminal.
Fishermen had been allowed to sell whole frozen fish from their boats, and the rule was softened later to allow the sales of cut-up fish. But Knutson was caught on Port surveillance footage selling the processed food and booted out.
Knutson - who is now back at the terminal in his boat - got the footage through a public-disclosure request, Bullert said. Still, the documentary quotes a Port official saying Knutson wasn't specifically targeted for surveillance, that the camera was only a safety measure.
The furor over pleasure boats mooring at Fishermen's Terminal has largely died down now, but Bullert said her documentary wasn't really about yachts anyway. "I think the story is really more about the Port," she said. "The Port ended up taking over the film in a way."
But Bullert hopes her documentary helps point out that nostalgic, romanticized stereotypes about rugged fishermen make it easier to ignore the real issues facing a shrinking fishing fleet and the men and women who work in it.
"Fishermen's Terminal" will have its world-premiere film-festival showing at the Egyptian Theatre at 6:30 p.m. on Memorial Day, May 30.[[In-content Ad]]
