North Cormorant Island begins as an observational documentary, following the everyday life of a remote Japanese fishing village on Sado island, observing the rituals, customs and work of the people who live there. But as the filmmaker spends more time in the village, people begin to talk about their lives, and he begins to reflect on his own childhood in his father’s village in Wales and to think about time, place, mortality and human relationships with the land and the sea.