An award-winning film, made on a tight budget, captures in powerful images the complexities of small-scale fishers and fish processors in West Africa. I’m in search of happiness. That’s how a young Guinean surprises us in the smoky atmosphere of a sardinella smoking oven in Casamance, Senegal, in a sequence from the film Poisson d’or, poisson africain. Thomas Grand and his friend Moussa Diop show us the price to pay for trying to make a living on this bustling beach. They give us a scalpel-sharp analysis of the complex realities of a temporary community that brings together, for six months of the year, men, women and children from all over West Africa, around the exploitation of fish.