Bon chance ….

We had good luck this past weekend, at the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival, where they screened both TERRA ANTARCTICA and the brand-new WHAT WOULD DARWIN THINK? TERRA was given the festival's "Grand Prize for Best Film" (the Jury: Jon Bowermaster takes us with stunning images on his sailing boat and kayak right into the beauty of the seventh continent. A place, not many of us will ever have the chance to see. He delivers a subtle message about climate change as we visit various research stations. The funding acquired for this film shows in professional visuals and a round delivery.) And DARWIN was given the prize as "Best Environmental Film" (the Jury: The message is clear in this film stuffed ...

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Posted in Uncategorized

The Age of Stupid

Spent a fantastic-if-occasionally-soggy weekend in Nevada City, California, roaming from venue to venue at the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival, watching new films and re-watching a couple recent classics. We also showed two films – TERRA ANTARCTICA and the ‘premiere’ of WHAT WOULD DARWIN THINK? Man v. Nature in the Galapagos – to great response. My favorites were two: THE AGE OF STUPID and PICKIN’ AND TRIMMIN.’ The former, by British director Fanny Armstrong, is a look back at 2008 from the vantage point of 2050. The big question in retrospect becomes “What were you guys thinking, ...

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Posted in News

The Plastiki Floats!

I spent a recent afternoon at the marina in Sausalito aboard David de Rothschild’s just-launched Plastiki, the 60-foot catamaran he plans on sailing from San Francisco to Sydney … very, very soon. A sailboat made nearly completely from plastic? The idea came to him four years ago – How to use adventure to draw attention to the world’s rapacious consumption and waste of plastic? – and it’s taken that long to figure out the design, construction and sail-ability of a completely novel craft. Sixty-seven percent of its buoyancy comes from empty plastic water bottles; its strength comes from a ...

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Posted in News, Plastic pollution

Japanese Whalers 1, Sea Shepherd 0

Captain Paul Watson and his band of merry whale-hunters from Sea Shepherd took a big hit last week when their $2 million “attack” boat the Andy Gil was run over by a five-hundred-ton Japanese whaling ship. Video of the incident shows the Batmobile-like trimaran – made of carbon fiber and Kevlar, designed to pierce the rough seas of the Southern Ocean – baiting the bigger ship, being cascaded by fire hoses and then being landed on. Its bow severely damaged, though none of its six-person crew seriously injured, the Shepherd’s main ...

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Posted in Antarctica, News