Around the Reef

from Southern Tides January 2018

Editor's Note

By Michelle Riley Communications & Public Outreach Coordinator Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary

Locals will delight in seeing the cultural heritage and marine science of Georgia’s waterways featured at this year’s Gray’s Reef Film Festival, taking place February 9-11.

Opening night is a fast-paced visit to several of America’s national marine sanctuaries and includes new underwater footage of Gray’s Reef and some great diving scenes. The evening concludes with “Blue Serengeti,” a film that follows scientists as they tag and track great white sharks off the coast of California, much like researchers track Mary Lee and other great whites along the South Carolina and Georgia coast. Getting a rare, first-hand look at the lives of these apex predators brings us ever closer to understanding the secrets of the ocean.

Day two of the film festival kicks off with the annual Emerging Filmmakers Competition at the SCAD Museum of Art. Gray’s Reef will screen several short films created, directed and edited by students, and winning filmmakers will receive their awards during the festival’s evening session at the Trustees Theater.

Saturday night at the festival is all about Georgia. The first movie vividly illustrates the perilous work undertaken by scuba divers in the Savannah River, as super-sized freighters race past them only yards away. They are archaeologists, diving to help raise the Confederate ironclad ship, CSS Georgia. Filmmaker Michael Jordan tells the tale of the unusual ship, which was funded during the Civil War by Georgia’s women. This is the world premiere of “From Ironclad to Artifact: The Journey of the CSS Georgia,” the latest release from the popular and award-winning filmmaker.

Jordan’s film is followed by the festival premiere of “Shifting Baselines,” an engaging movie that tells the story of Georgia’s fishing families. In their own words, men and women of Georgia’s waters paint a picture of their lives and livelihoods over generations. Luminaries of the Georgia fishing industry from Brunswick to Savannah remember the once-booming southeastern commercial fisheries. Fishermen including Captain Judy Helmey, Captain Charlie Phillips, and the Timmons and Gale fishing families are joined by some of the research scientists and government administrators who must make tough calls to address the changes over time. Created by Cathy Sakas, chair of the Gray’s Reef Foundation, and Mehmet Caglayan of Savannah-based Blue Voyage Productions, “Shifting Baselines” is an enlightening look at the business of seafood in Georgia through the cultural perspective of our own fishermen.

The film festival wraps up at the Tybee Post Theater with colorful short films that touch on everything from seahorses to kite boarding to an animated look at plastic straws in the ocean and closes with a magnificent National Geographic movie, “Sea of Hope.” There, viewers follow diving legend Sylvia Earle and a crew of teenage aquanauts on their year-long quest to establish blue parks across the underwater American wilderness.

As always, the Gray’s Reef Film Festival is free to the public and donations are gratefully accepted. Donations benefit the Gray’s Reef National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, which supports the sanctuary staff’s work to keep Gray’s Reef and its creatures healthy and vibrant. Suggested donations are $8 for adults and $5 for kids, seniors and members of the military. For a list of films, see page 19. For a detailed line-up and schedule, visit our website at graysreef.noaa.gov.

michelle.riley@noaa.gov

Above: Images of mantis shrimp from "The Snail-Smashing, Fish-Spearing, Eye-Popping Mantis Shrimp" (Friday, Trustees Theater). Photo of left by Joshua Cassidy/KQED, photo on right by Roy Caldwell

This Image: From "Galloping Extinction: Last Stand of the Seahorse." (Sunday, Tybee Post Theater). Photo by Aaron Gekoski/Scubazoo.com