SPECIAL MEDIA SCREENING followed by a Q&A session with the film’s central figure, dolphin trainer-turned-animal rights activist Ric O’Barry

Friday, September 25, 2009 19:00

THE COVE USA, 2009. 92 minutes. 20F.

Directed by Louie Psihoyos
Written by Mark Monroe

Produced by the Oceanic Preservation Society, Diamond Docs, Fish Films and Quickfire Films
Featuring Ric O'Barry, Mandy-Rae Cruikshank, Louis Psihoyos, Paul Watson

Film courtesy of The Works Media Group

Warning: This film contains graphic scenes of violence against animals.

In English, with provisional Japanese subtitles

You've read the news stories, you've heard that Japan has unofficially banned it, you know that it was the catalyst for Broome, Australia's, recent severing of its Sister City ties with Taiji, Japan. Now join the Movie Committee for this important screening of The Cove, the sensational award-winning documentary that is the most controversial film of 2009.

Directed by former National Geographic photographer Louis Psihoyos, The Cove was filmed clandestinely over a five-year period and features scenes of incredible beauty as well as brutality. Using state-of-the-art equipment and unique guerrilla filmmaking techniques, a group of specially skilled activists, led by renowned dolphin trainer Ric O'Barry (of Flipper fame), infiltrate a hidden cove near Taiji, south of Osaka, to publicize both a shocking "tradition" of animal butchery and a grave mercury threat to Japanese public health.

Documenting what the New York Times has called "one of the most audacious and perilous operations in the history of the conservation movement," The Cove traces two painful and parallel journeys: O'Barry's personal conversion from the world's most famous dolphin trainer to an impassioned (and frequently arrested) dolphin rights activist; and the knuckle-whitening forays of the guerrilla team determined to expose the ongoing covert massacres of more than 2,500 dolphins in the isolated cove. The latter tale throbs with real-life danger and suspense as the activists resort to high-tech night-vision cameras, muffled radio reconnaissance, and cloak-and-dagger evasion of local toughs and police.

Invoking testimony from respected Japanese scientists, the film blows the whistle on the government's willful neglect of the deadly mercury levels in dolphin meat, which is still widely consumed in the countryside. Despite mercury toxicity levels frequently 200 to 300 times the government's upper limits for fish, the meat is sold without warning labels in supermarkets or often disguised as harmless whale meat. It has even found its way into school lunch programs. Despite Minamata’s terrible legacy, the Japanese public remains dangerously unaware of the threat.

Winner of the Audience Awards at an unprecedented number of film festivals-Sundance Hot Docs, Newport Beach, Nantucket, Silver Docs, Sydney-The Cove is currently attracting crowds on specialty screens across America. There is no Japanese distributor nor any plans to screen it in Japan, so don't miss this opportunity!

Please make your reservations at the FCCJ Reception Desk (3211-3161) to allow for seating arrangements.

All movie screenings are private, noncommercial events restricted to FCCJ members and their guests.

Karen Severns, Edwin Karmiol, Movie Committee