Chasing Coral on World Oceans Day

London’s Sundance Film Festival last week wasn’t just a tribute to the best independent movies of the year, it was a celebration of creativity and collaboration too.

Talented teams, sharing a single vision, working in sync, to engage, provoke and excite thousands of movie goers across a long-weekend at Picturehouse Central in London.

Jeff Orlowski, Director of Chasing Coral, and winner of the Audience Award at the earlier Sundance Film Festival in the US, was one of the many filmmakers we spoke to during our time supporting the London event. In his words: “We have had hundreds and hundreds of people working on Chasing Coral. It really was a collaboration unlike anything I would have anticipated when we started the project. I just love our team and we’ve been working together, in some cases, for many, many years. Some people are new on the team, and it feels like we are a family that is working on projects together, wanting to make a difference, wanting to get the story out there.”

Chasing Coral exemplifies the idea of collaboration; three and a half years of filming, including over six hundred and fifty hours of underwater footage, coming together through a team of over five hundred volunteers from thirty countries around the world.

And the result of this collaboration and creativity? Using decades of research from marine biologists and reef experts to explore the destruction of reefs due to warming global water temperatures; the film has been described as a ‘powerful wakeup call’ and “a triumph of both visual and narrative storytelling.”

Within the first few minutes, one marine expert shares photographic evidence suggesting 80-90% of corals in the Florida Keys have been lost over the past 30 years. We’re also told the figure for worldwide coral losses is over 50%, with such acceleration meaning reefs could be wiped out in our lifetime.

The timing of the movie’s trailer launch couldn’t be more apt with today marking World Oceans Day, an awareness day now officially recognised by the United Nations. This year’s theme is “Our Oceans, Our Future,” and focusses on the prevention of plastic ocean pollution. So, who better to ask why we should be supporting World Oceans Day than the Director of Chasing Coral: “All life on earth depends on a healthy ocean.” Jeff told us today: “If we don’t take care of it, it won’t take care of us.”

You can watch the trailer below, or find out more about what inspires its Director by watching our short video above.