Everyday Activist - Chasing Coral (Oscars 2018)

Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 11:00 PM

Chasing Coral (Oscars 2018)

Movie Review by Everyday Activist X CalgaryMovies.com

From the director of Chasing Ice comes Chasing Coral. Watching the cinematography, I missed, Canadian director and activist, Rob Stewart terribly. Rob had a rare talent to bring beautiful images into a bleak situation throughout his films Sharkwater and Revolution. My understanding of the plight of coral comes from seeing Revolution back in 2013. I can only imagine how heartbroken he must have felt witnessing the ocean’s demise first hand as did the scientists and filmmakers in Jeff Orlowski’s latest project.

Having watched Chasing Ice several times, I chuckled at the equipment failure. James Balog’s cameras designed to capture glacier activity failed the first time, because they weren’t tested properly, causing him to lose a year’s worth of data. Then to see the same thing happen in Chasing Coral, where they rushed to catch the bleaching that they didn’t test the equipment properly, had me shaking my head. At least in Balog’s case, he managed to get the technology to work the next year. The Chasing Coral crew didn’t have the same luck, but through sheer determination managed to collect the images they needed by hand.

Unlike Rob Stewart, who was a biologist before entering into activism and filmmaking, the project architect for Chasing Coral, Richard Vevers, was actually in advertising, before he became an environmental activist. This shows how we all can bring awareness to issues that matter to us, using our current skill set regardless of whether it’s in science, marketing or in Al Gore’s case, politics. We all have something to contribute to the discussion regarding our home planet.

I appreciated the connection of how Al Gore’s work documented in An Inconvenient Sequel affected the makers of Chasing Coral. Back in the Bush era, Gore had wanted a satellite launched to provide environmental data. It wasn’t until the Obama administration that it finally was launched. The data helps National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predict the warming events affecting the coral. The best way to make change happen is to work together, which was a theme brought out in the film as they talked about coral communities.

The demise of ice and coral make great post children for the climate change activists. Chasing Ice and Chasing Coral are available on Netflix. Both are well crafted environmental films demonstrating the impact of human activity. Michael Burry who predicted the 2008 financial crisis, has accurately predicted the water crisis. Cape Town has only a few months of water left to service a city of 4 million people. Shifts are happening in consumer culture as we remember that the first “R” is to reduce. The question of will it be enough and in time remains to be seen.

Calgary Showtimes: Chasing Coral >