It would seem to be a hopeless situation. But Sea of Shadows does not in any way strike a tone of despair. In fact, it is inspiring. And with the help of an investigation led by Andrea Crosta, it also offers a solution: go after the Chinese traffickers.

“[Cartel boss] Oscar Parra is just a tool. The Chinese traders need people like Parra to keep the trade on,” says Crosta as he sets out on an undercover mission to collect evidence on a shadowy buyer in Mexicali.

Landaki agrees: “The cartel needs a buyer. Without the Chinese, you can’t get the product to China. The Mexican narco traffickers have zero connection to China, directly. They work with the Chinese Mexican citizens… without them, they’re nothing.”

The result of Crosta’s investigation, a report exposing roughly 30 Chinese traffickers based in Mexico, has now been submitted to the Mexican authorities, and Ladkani says his team are pushing hard for action to be taken.

This is just one of the many things Ladkani is doing to ensure Sea of Shadows makes a difference for the vaquita. He is a firm believer in the power of film to bring change. And well he might be. His last documentary, The Ivory Game, helped persuade the Chinese authorities to shut down the ivory trade at the end of 2017.

But while a key message of that film was that only Beijing had the power to save the elephants, this time Ladkani is adamant the Chinese are doing everything they can. “China banned the totoaba a long time ago… They’ve done ten times more than the Mexicans,” he says.

Jack Hutton makes the point more forcibly: “To go after the mindset of the Chinese people would seem like a rather pointless thing to do for the survival of the vaquita currently. It will take a generational change… and we don’t have time for the vaquita, for the Sea of Cortez… It’s past midnight at this stage.”

It’s not too late to create a movement though. For Ladkani, his film is “the last stand” for the vaquita, and he wants to reach as big an audience as possible: “I’m not targeting the people who are already in conservation… I’m targeting the whole world. Only if we have a movement of people who wake up and see this is happening to our planet, that’s when you can create change.”