Rare sighting … a basking shark in North Sea, Nature Untamed. Photograph: Joost van Uffelen/©Dutch Maritime Productions View image in fullscreen Rare sighting … a basking shark in North Sea, Nature Untamed. Photograph: Joost van Uffelen/©Dutch Maritime Productions Film ‘Sharks are my film stars’: how the Jacques Cousteau of the North Sea finally unlocked its beauty Epic plankton blooms make filming in the North Sea notoriously difficult. But a new documentary gives a rare glimpse of the kaleidoscopic life – seals, sharks, tuna, orcas and shorthorn sculpins – lurking beneath its waves
Patrick Barkham Mon 7 Sep 2026 06.00 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google T he North Sea, as even its greatest admirers will concede, often glowers an unappetising grey or brown. And we assume that its dull exterior is matched by sediment-filled waters where little life dwells. For years, the friends and family of Peter van Rodijnen wondered why the Dutch cinematographer and diving fanatic spent so much time exploring “this murky bowl of soup”. But, inspired by a childhood of watching Jacques Cousteau’s adventures in rather more enticingly temperate waters, Van Rodijnen’s dedication to North Sea diving gradually revealed its hidden wonders.
Over 20 years, as camera technology improved, Van Rodijnen obtained more and more amazing footage of marine life near his home on the Netherlands coast. Nearly a decade ago, he teamed up with director Mark Verkerk. “We started with the idea,” says Van Rodijnen, “that if somebody can make a movie about the North Sea, it’s got to be us.”
It’s no accident that there are virtually no films about the North Sea North Sea, Nature Untamed will startle anyone who has ever set eyes on – or dipped a toe in – the shallow sea shared by the coastal nations of north-west Europe. Despite decades of intensive fishing, oil extraction and multiple other exploitations, parts of the North Sea are still alive with luminous pinks, purples and greens; starfish, lobsters, brittle stars, kelp forests, seals and basking sharks. This hidden wilderness may be almost as spectacular as a tropical reef, even if the Great Barrier Reef, where Van Rodijnen began his diving career, is much more accessible.
View image in fullscreen Rough seas … four out of five planned dives were cancelled Photograph: Joost van Uffelen/Dutch Maritime Productions Part of the reason we rarely comprehend the marine riches of the North Sea is because of epic plankton blooms that, as the film explains, are actually the foundation of this living ecosystem. These annual eruptions feed its whole pyramid of marine life but, combined with the shallow waters and big tides, frequently make underwater visibility too poor to film. “It’s no accident that there are virtually no films about the North Sea,” grimaces Verkerk. “This is really one of the first big attempts. It is incredibly difficult.”
Van Rodijnen, who narrates the film in a charmingly personal way, meticulously assembled his underwater stories from decades of North Sea diving. But during their seven-year shoot, the film-makers faced multiple last-minute cancellations of carefully scheduled trips to join fishers or windfarm construction sites alongside even less predictable attempts to intercept dolphin, bluefin tuna and basking sharks. Four out of every five planned dives in the North Sea were cancelled because of rough seas.
“The visibility can be poor, there can be lots of currents, it is cold,” says Van Rodijnen.…