Just yesterday Sundance announced the selection of 112 feature length films to screen at the 2019 festival. One of those films is Sea of Shadows, produced in association with the Wild Lens Collective and co-directed by Wild Lens filmmaker Sean Bogle, and myself. Needless to say, we are ecstatic about this exciting development and the opportunity that it offers to spread awareness about the plight of the vaquita, the world’s most endangered marine mammal.
Sean Bogle and I have been working to document the dramatic decline of the vaquita, a small porpoise found only in the Northern Gulf of California, for more than three years now. We produced the short film Souls of the Vermilion Sea, and released it in 2017. Soon after the release we were approached by director Richard Ladkani and Terra Mater Factual Studios about collaborating on a new feature length film about the vaquita. Now, the resulting film has been accepted into one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world!
Although we’re extremely excited about this opportunity to share the vaquita’s story with a wider audience, we must not forget about the dire situation faced by this species in Mexico’s Gulf of California. The vaquita could be extinct within the next year – this is not an uplifting story; it is a story of tragic loss. Co-director Sean Bogle wrote about this feeling of loss in a recent article published as a part of the Dark Mountain Project.
Despite our excitement at this recognition from Sundance, now is not a time for us to celebrate. It is a time for us to strategize and plan for the future. It may be too late for humanity to save the vaquita, but we hope that people can learn from the vaquita’s story, and use these lessons to prevent future extinctions.
-Matt Podolsky, Souls of the Vermilion Sea producer, and Sea of Shadows co-director