Tasmania’s first-ever ocean film festival will open this Friday, 30 November in Hobart with screenings of a selection of the world’s best ocean films from across the globe and Tasmania together with panel discussions featuring marine scientists, conservationists and fishers.
Blue on Tour began in California and has now become a travelling film festival and conservation event, taking place in countries around the world from Mexico, to Sydney to Beijing.
Blue on Tour seeks to use the power of film to inform audiences about the issues facing our oceans and inspire people to act as marine stewards.
Tasmania’s Blue on Tour Oceans Film Festival coincides with Coastcare Week – a week aimed at celebrating our coasts, raising awareness of their importance, and to thank the hundreds of volunteers from across Australia who help protect and regenerate our coasts every year.
“Screen Tasmania is delighted to be supporting the inaugural Blue on Tour Ocean film festival in Tasmania as part of our festival and events funding program. It is particularly timely with a spotlight on the Antarctic region and the Southern Oceans forming a key element of the recently launched Tasmanian Southern Regional Economic Development plan.
Tasmania is the gateway to a rich marine environment and cinema provides a window into this exotic world that can impact on audiences, cultivating ideas and inspiring change,” said the Director of Screen Tasmania, Karena Slaninka.
“I am particularly pleased that the work of Tasmanian film-makers will be showcased as part of the screening program of films from around the world, helping to raise awareness of the talent that exists within our local industry”.
“We still know more about the surface of the moon than we do about our oceans. The Blue on Tour Oceans film festival opens up a whole new world for those of us that don’t get to see it firsthand – to experience the spectacular marine life and dramatic underwater landscapes, and to understand some of the threats to this environment and what each of us can do to help sustain it into the future,” said Rebecca Hubbard, Marine Coordinator with Environment Tasmania.
“We are excited to announce that, along with the world’s best ocean films, the Blue on Tour Oceans film festival will be presenting internationally renowned fisheries scientist Dr. Daniel Pauly as guest speaker on opening night,” concluded Ms Hubbard.
http://www.et.org.au/news/2012/blue-tour-oceans-film-festival-november-30th-december-3rd
Background:
Opening night 6pm-10pm, Friday November 30th
Stanley Burbury Theatre, University of Tasmania
Feature Film: Planet Ocean
Short films from Tasmania and overseas
Guest Speaker: International fisheries expert Dr Daniel Pauly
Sunday night 6pm-9:30pm, Sunday December 2nd
Stanley Burbury Theatre, University of Tasmania
Feature Film: Sushi – the Global Catch
Expert Panel – the Future of Tasmanian Fisheries: Martin Exel (Austral fisheries), Dr Nic Bax (CSIRO), Jon Bryan (Tasmanian Conservation Trust)
Monday matinee 10am-1pm, Monday December 3rd
Stanley Burbury theatre, University of Tasmania
Feature Film: Minds In the Water
Short films from Tasmania and overseas
Expert Panel – How our actions can help the oceans
Biography of Dr Daniel Pauly
Daniel Pauly is a French-born marine biologist, well known for his work in studying human impacts on global fisheries. He is a professor and the project leader of the Sea Around Us Project at the Fisheries Centre at the University of British Columbia. The author of several books and more than 500 scientific papers, Pauly is a prolific writer and communicator. Pauly featured in the The End of the Line, the first major documentary about global overfishing, which premiered at Sundance in 2009. He developed the concept of shifting baselines in 1995 and authored the seminal paper, Fishing down marine food webs, in 1998. For working to protect the environment, he earned a place in the “Scientific American 50″ in 2003, the same year the New York Times labeled him an “iconoclast”. Pauly won the International Cosmos Prize in 2005, the Volvo Environment Prize in 2006, the Excellence in Ecology Prize and Ted Danson Ocean Hero Award in 2007, the Ramon Margalef Prize in Ecology and Environmental Sciences in 2008, and the Nierenberg Prize for Science in the Public Interest from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in 2012. He frequently expresses opinions about public policy, specifically he argues that governments should abolish subsidies to fishing fleets and establish marine reserves. He is a member of the Board of Oceana.
Rebecca Hubbard Marine Coordinator, Environment Tasmania
