Video: Sharkwater Trailer

Sharkwater
2007, 89 minutes
Directed by Rob Stewart

One man’s crusade to save the world’s sharks from their greatest enemy—humans.

Winner of 22 international film awards, including:

• Canada’s Top Ten—Toronto International Film Festival
• People’s Choice—Atlantic International Film Festival
• People’s Choice—Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival
• Best Documentary—Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival
• Spirit of Independents Award—Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival
• Special Jury Award—Hawaii International Film Festival
• Best Musical Composition—France World Festival of Underwater Pictures
• Prix Planete Thalassa—France World Festival of Underwater Pictures
• Best of the Festival—Palm Springs International Film Festival
• Best International Documentary—Beverly Hills Hi-Def Festival
• Best HD Feature—AFI Dallas International Film Festival
• Audience Choice Award for Best Feature—Gen Art Film Festival
• Grand Jury Award for Best Feature—Gen Art Film Festival
• Peter Benchley Shark Conservation Award—Shark Research Institute
• Special Jury Award—15 Short Films Festival, North Carolina
• Must-See Award (Category: Wake-Up Films)—Telluride Mountain Film Festival
• Hero of Conservation, Water Category—Conservation for the Oceans Foundation
• Top Ten Films—Cambridge Film Festival
• Top Five Films—Encounters Film Festival, South Africa

“Like An Inconvenient Truth, it rates as utterly essential viewing for anyone who cares about the state of the environment and the future of the world as a whole.”

—Ron Foley Macdonald, Infomonkey.net

“For environmentalists, the film is a must-see; for everyone else, Sharkwater is gripping storytelling, a kind of cross between the sheer biological poetry of Winged Migration and engaged politics of Bowling for Columbine … a contemporary masterpiece, combining modern-day ecological drama with some of the most provocative shark footage to ever see the light of day.”

—Mongo Nikol, Ecopathic.blogspot.com

About the Film

Sharks have long stirred hostility and anxiety in the human soul. Countless books, films, and sensationalized headlines have made the word “shark” synonymous with images of vicious attacks perpetrated by indiscriminate killing machines.

The truth is that sharks have been pivotal characters in the evolution of the seas, are critical in maintaining the balance of ocean life, and have much more cause to fear us than we have to fear them, says filmmaker Rob Stewart, who has spent years shooting hundreds of hours of videotape in an attempt to demonstrate these conclusions to a skeptical public.

For what seemed a perfect opportunity to begin filming a documentary on declining shark populations, Stewart—an experienced diver and underwater photographer—joined members of the Los Angeles-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society aboard the Ocean Warrior during a four-month expedition to deter shark poaching in Costa Rica and Ecuador.

However, a series of life-and-death situations resulted—including pirate boat rammings, attempted murder charges, arrests, espionage, and encounters with corruption and hospitalization.

Shot in visually gorgeous, high-definition video, Sharkwater takes the viewer into the most shark-rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation of the world’s shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica, and the Galapagos Islands.

Through it all, Stewart reveals how sharks have been transformed from predator to prey; and how, despite surviving the earth’s history of mass extinctions, they could easily be wiped out within a few years, due to human greed.

Showtimes

In theaters across the U.S. on November 2nd. Click here for more information.

All video and photos courtesy of Sharkwater Productions. TV clips with March date from limited initial release.