Second Annual Reef Renaissance Film Festival a Complete Success
“MAY I HAVE THE ENVELOPE, PLEASE!”
Our second annual festival was a complete success. It was extremely gratifying to look out on the rapt, standing-room-only crowd, and see everyone staring at the screen with their mouths hanging open. Co-founders Paul Cater Deaton, Monica Gephart and Elena Kobrinski are grateful to one and all.
Virgin Islands Senate President Shawn-Michael Malone gave the keynote address, speaking on environmental issues including the long road to legislation which will ultimately ban plastic garbage bags in the Virgin Islands. We also heard from Dr. Rick Nemeth, of the University of the Virgin Islands, on the value of marine protected areas, grouper aggregations, and sustainability.
The winners in our inaugural juried competition received unique Coral and Trident Awards, hand-crafted from recycled glass bottles by Barbara Krueger, of Water Candy. We congratulate these winning entries:
Neptune Award for Best-in-Show
“Grouper Moon”
“Changing Seas” Team, Producers
Black Coral Award for 1st Place Documentary Short
“Grouper Moon”
“Changing Seas” Team, Producers
Fan Coral Award for 2nd Place Documentary Short
“Garbage or Resource? A Dominican Republic Experience”
Alexandra Tabar, Producer
Aquamarine Award for 3rd Place Documentary Short
“Sunken Stories”
Kandra Velez, Producer
Black Coral Award for 1st Place PSA
“EAST/VICS Green Sea Turtle Reusable Shopping Bags Campaign”
Karl Callwood, Producer
Black Coral Award for 1st Place Dotcomentary
“Snapper Spawn”
Brad Erisman, Producer
Fan Coral Award for 2nd Place Dotcomentary
“Save Your Planet Every Day”
Drew Alston, Producer
Honorable Mention Dotcomentary
“Don’t Go Away”
Janet Gregory-Moos, Producer
Honorable Mention Documentary Short
“At Sea Level” and “A Fisher’s Story”
Corinne McAfee, Producer
Honorable Mention Documentary Short
“The Deep and the Dark”
Karl Callwood, Producer
The winning entries, and films contributed by the judges, and RRFF co-founder and Show Coordinator Paul Cater Deaton, kept everyone spellbound throughout the three-hour event. We are grateful to our judges for their time and effort in selecting the winners, and for sharing these films:
“Chasing Lightning” and “Niña Salerosa”
333 Productions
Joe Romeiro and Bill Fisher, Producers
“Invasives” Segment from Season Four of “Jonathan Bird’s Blue World”
Jonathan Bird Productions
Christine and Jonathan Bird, Producers
“The Last Hurrah”
Global Discovery Group
Paul Cater Deaton, Producer
“Sylvia’s Sea”
r.e.m films
Richard Morris, Producer
“Sea Weed”
Gregory A.D.
Greg Lashbrook and Kathy Johnson, Producers
We gratefully acknowledge the following for their contributions to the success of the Second Annual Reef Renaissance Film Festival:
Coral World Ocean Park for hosting this year’s festival,
Pru Clearwater and Steve Richman, for a splendid musical performance,
Flights of Fire, for their electrifying fire dance,
our hard-working volunteers,
and the standing-room-only audience who are the heartbeat of the event.
Energized by the success of the evening, we feel very confident about the future of the festival. We are already planning for a bigger and better event in 2015. Please keep watching this page, and encourage family and friends to do the same!
MISSION STATEMENT
The mission of Reef Renaissance Film Festival is to recognize and create awareness of the desperate need for protection of our precious oceans and marine resources, to engender inspired stewardship, to serve as a conduit through which many more people may become conservationists, and to provide a platform for both seasoned and emerging filmmakers and media creators to champion sustainability and best practices through film and interactive arts. The event will be held annually on World Oceans Day, 8 June.
For more information visit the Reef Renaissance Film Festival website at: www.reefrenaissance.com