This week we’re planning to dip our toe in the deep when the annual Ocean Film Festival sweeps in to Shrewsbury.
Ocean lovers will be able to watch a selection of the world’s most amazing films, from both above and below the water’s surface.
The event will take place at Shrewsbury’s Theatre Severn on Wednesday at 7.30pm.
Created by the team behind the Banff Film Festival UK Tour, the collection of short films celebrates divers, paddlers, surfers and oceanographers.
The 2017 film programme sees intrepid freedivers explore haunting shipwrecks, sailors facing the icy waters of Antarctica and marine life such as humpback whales and the endangered Giant Pacific Mantaray.
Tour director Nell Teasdale said: “We’re delighted to be bringing the Ocean Film Festival World Tour back to UK audiences for the fourth year running.
“Featuring incredible cinematography, the films capture the raw beauty and power of the ocean, while celebrating an eclectic and fascinating mix of characters who live for the sea’s salt spray.”
The film programme lasts for about two hours, and there’s a free prize giveaway to win ocean-related goodies at each screening too.
Film highlights include Sea Gypsies about the crew of Infinity, who are about to embark on an extraordinary voyage from New Zealand to Patagonia. The ship was built by hand in the 1970s and lacks some of the usual reinforcements considered necessary for such an extreme expedition.
Whale Chasers follows the story of a group of men in their 70s and 80s who watch for humpback whales as part of the Cook Strait Whale County in New Zealand. The men are not only descendents of New Zealand’s 200-year history of whaling but they were all once whalers themselves.
Fishpeople is a film about the transformative effects of time spent in the ocean – and how we can leave our limitations behind to find deeper meaning in the saltwater wilderness that lies just beyond the shore.
Tickets for the cinema event cost £15 or £13 for concessions. They are available from the Theatre Severn website at www.theatresevern.co.uk or by calling the box office 01743 281281.
For more information, or to watch the trailer, see www.ocean film festival.co.uk.
The 2017 UK Ocean Film Festival World Tour is working in partnership with marine conservation charities Marine Conservation Society and Surfers Against Sewage.
By donating 25p from every ticket sold during the tour, the team hopes to help raise awareness of the organisations and contribute towards their essential work.
