Sunday, March 11, 2012

10:00 a.m. – Program 9

Fin

(Hong Kong), Josefina Bergsten, Claire Garner, Alex Hofford, Andy Limond, 13 mins, North American Premier
The fins of sharks caught around the world are sent to Hong Kong where a combination of wealth and custom has made the city the epicenter for consuming shark’s fin soup. It is a status dish at weddings, company banquets, and celebrations. —KH

Jigantic Jenga

(Japan), Humane Society International, Josefina Bergsten, 5 mins, North American Premier
In this lighthearted game with oversized Jenga blocks, where you remove a block from a tower creating an increasingly unstable structure as the game progresses, the stakes are high (literally). Students quickly learn that removing too many pieces of the ecosystem puzzle can result in the total collapse of an ecological community. —DB

St. Francis Yacht Club Heavy Weather Laser Slalom

(USA), Vincent Casalaina*, 4 mins
Thrills, spills, capsizing, and the speed of the Laser one-design sailboat are the elements of the St. Francis Yacht Club 2011 Laser Slalom Regatta. Thirty-two solo sailors race to the finish in sight of the Golden Gate in fast, agile sailboats and in heavy weather conditions, where little errors have big consequences. —JO

Surf, Sand, and Silversides

(USA), Karen Martin*, 25 mins
When tides are highest, a small silvery fish hits Southern California beaches with an ardor surpassing that of many bipeds. Grunions, though, prefer hanging out at night, squiggling out of the surf to lay and fertilize a gazillion eggs. Both fish and eggs have lots of predators––humans especially like the fish––so Grunion Greeters, volunteers organized by NOAA, help to protect them. —SH

Whale Fall

(USA), Sharon Shattuck and Flora Lichtman, 4 mins
Is there life after death? There certainly is–an afterlife of abundance! This animated short depicts how one whale’s death creates a complex, thriving underwater necropolis capable of sustaining an entire community of other sea organisms. Nothing ghoulish here! It is a delight of visual storytelling, lyrically presented and beautifully scored. —MJS

I Just Love to Paddle

(USA), Marta Czajkowska*, 31 mins
A legend in the outrigger paddling community of Hawai’i, 67-year-old Nappy Napoleon leads a group of seven open ocean paddlers. With the ambitious goal to be the first to cross all nine channels of the Islands of Hawai’i, from the Big Island to Kauai, they set out in one-man outrigger canoes, aiming to complete it in six consecutive days. —JO

Sunday, March 11, 1:00 p.m. – Program 10

A Fall from Freedom

(USA), Stan Minasian*, 81 mins
The story of “Free Willy”—aka Keiko—dramatized the lives of orcas kept captive in oceanariums and sea parks. But the story is much wider than that. Throughout the world there are other species of cetaceans, especially dolphins, held captive for public entertainment. “A Fall from Freedom” is a comprehensive history of these facilities and shows why these sentient beings deserve better. —KH

The Great Huki

(USA), John Maienza*, Gregg Wilson, Tom Putnam, 7 mins
An organized community of volunteers can save a place they love. For decades, the natural ecosystem of Maunalua Bay on Oahu has been overgrown with non-native algae. This is a big success story that highlights how the community “pulled together” (“huki” in Hawaiian), and removed the algae from this enormous bay one grueling bag at a time. —DB

The Norm Petersen Regatta

(USA), Kris Handwerk*, 12 mins
A tribute to Norm Petersen, a rower at the South End Rowing Club for over 50 years, and through his words, a tribute as well to the kindred spirits, men and women, who find Bay rowing and swimming a joyous and life-affirming experience. –– SH

4:00 p.m. – Program 11

La Restauracion de Isla Isabel

(Mexico), Conservación de islas*, 26 mins USA Premiere
Among the many invasive, non-native animals that humans have carried to offshore islands, perhaps the most destructive are rats. But how can you eradicate them without harming the native species? Mexican scientists have developed some successful techniques on Isabel Island. —KH

Light Screen

(Spain), Carlos Virgili Ribe, 19 mins USA Premiere
Two underwater photographers explore light on the water. First they dive deep into the flooded caves—cenotes—scattered along the Yucatan shore, some many miles long. And then they move off shore to swim with the whale sharks that congregate along this coast. —KH

Project Manta

(Australia), Gisela Kaufman and Carsten Orlt, 52 mins
It is one of the largest creatures in the ocean, yet little is known about the graceful, harmless, slow-swimming manta rays that can be seven meters wide. Australian researchers on the Great Barrier Reef attach acoustic tacks and spy on their comings and goings. —KH

Ocean Babies on Acid

(USA), Robin Garthwait and Dan Griffin*, 7 mins
The ultimate bad trip may be what’s happening insidiously in our oceans. With sea urchins and other shelled creatures, lack of calcification for spines and exoskeletons from increased CO2 levels is a prickly subject, indeed. It threatens their short-term existence, and biologists Stephen Palumbi and Eric Sanford are investigating how their genes may also be affected, and the reproductive repercussions.