The main part of this film was created by the process of superimposition: Broodthaers’s ink drawings of fish, scales, words and signs were transferred to film stock, which was used in negative to create the final work. In contrast, the title sequence, added in 1971, shows Broodthaers’s drawn storyboards filmed with a moving camera. The film was shown for the first time at the Galerie Michael Werner in Cologne in 1971, and a second film Le Poisson est Tenace, was created partly from its out-takes.
