Chasing Coral (2017)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2017
	Director: Jeff Orlowski
	Actors: Andrew Ackerman, Pim Bongaerts, Neal Cantin
	Country: USA
	Genre: Documentary
	Conditions of visioning: 05.08.2017, VOD, 10" tablet screen
Synopsis: The coral reefs of the world are disappearing because of Global warming. How to make to public aware of that tragic fact?
Review: The Documentary starts a bit like an investigation: gathering testimonies of people that directly observed their sub-marine environment change in the past few years and how it affected their life (especially in the fishing communities). Then on to documenting coral death and discovering a prelude to it: coral bleaching, that has been proven to be directly linked to an increase in water temperature cause by Global warming. And then for the main protagonists the revelation of watching Chasing Ice that gave them the idea of contacting its director and of attempting a similar visual approach for their project: taking photos (or in their case short films) at regular intervals in the same locations across 6-12 months to emphasize the rapid deterioration of corals. In the same spirit as in Chasing Ice, difficulties are encountered: technical, financial, schedule, organizational, with the added one that the team had to predict were warm current would trigger coral bleaching. In the end we get to see some dramatic time-lapses of entire coral fields dying, but the impact is not that strong because the whole Documentary is less thought-through. A remarkable attempt anyway.
Rating: 4 /10