After diving for over 20 years, we began filming underwater to share the amazing and fragile world that so few people are privileged to experience first hand. Our films have won awards at many film festivals, including the Blue Oceans Film Festival, the American Conservation Film Festival and the Ocean Geographic Society. Here are a few of our favorite short films.
Beneath Wallace's Line
The “Wallacea” series of films highlights the breadth of biodiversity found in and around Wallacea and the coral triangle. These habitats are increasingly under threat, and the films describe the efforts of a few individuals who are working to help protect ecosystems both below and above the water.
Water, Blood and Spermaceti
As a young man in the 1950's, the artist Gregory Derviz joined an expedition to record the whaling stations on the remote Kuril Islands off Russia's isolated Sakhalin Oblast region. The dramatic and desolate coastline with large populations of whales living close to shore was a fertile hunting ground for the Soviet whalers. With photographs and paintings, Derviz recorded the lives of these men and the whales they captured. In "Water, Blood and Spermaceti" Derviz shares his memories of those times.
Alexey Yablokov (1933 - 2017)
While filming our documentary, The Witness Is a Whale, we had the privilege of interviewing Alexey Yablokov. He accomplished much throughout his scientific and political career, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, acting as President Boris Yeltsin’s environmental advisor, founding Russian Greenpeace, and leading the Green political party Yabloko. He defended nature and those who worked for it, never compromising his principles. Even though we only spent a couple of days with him, he left an indelible impression on us. His passionate idealism was truly inspiring. Here are some moments from our interviews with him that we hope capture his spirit.
“If we don’t have reverence for nature, for life, we will become extinct.” Alexey Yablokov, 2016
A Love Affair
Nudibranchs are some of the most exotic and colorful creatures living in our oceans. They are widespread and can be found throughout the world up to depths of 2000 feet. This film captures a very small fraction of the multitudes of nudibranchs living in warmer oceans around the Islands of Indonesia and brings a light-hearted perspective to the tiny and interesting world in which they live.
