Chasing Coral

In this urgent companion to his groundbreaking documentary Chasing Ice (Festival 2012), director Jeff Orlowski trades arctic ice for tropical waters as he and a team of scientists attempt to record the devastating effects of rising sea temperatures on the foundational organism of the world’s oceans—coral. Equal parts adventure story and environmental cri de coeur, Chasing Coral follows Richard Vevers, a former advertising executive whose passion for underwater photography evolves into a vast 3D mapping project of the worldwide coral ecosystem. Alarmed by the decline he observes in formerly robust coral reefs, he joins Orlowski and self-described ‘coral nerd’ Zack Rago to develop and deploy a sophisticated waterproof imaging system that will capture the damage in real time. Replete with spectacular undersea footage and eye-popping luminescent motion microscopy, this globetrotting film transports audiences to a series of exotic locales—Hawaii, New Caledonia, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef—with idyllic palm-lined beaches that belie the emerging extinction event in the waters offshore. Beneath ever-warming tropical seas, scientists and filmmakers alike must navigate through and document the kaleidoscopic formations of bleached and fluorescing coral, in an all-out effort to bring attention to—and hopefully avert—the greatest ecological catastrophe of our time. —Paul Meyers