Film Fest Makes Point On Oceans

A new Imax film festival is aimed at creating a sea change in the way people think about ocean life.

The California Science Center launched the first OceanFest on Friday, with 11 days of giant-screen movies about coral reefs, dolphins, deep-sea volcanoes and the importance of marine ecosystems.

"The intent is to inform the public about the importance of the ocean, the need to study it further and get kids involved in marine biology and basically how important the ocean is to those of us on land," said Imax director Greg MacGillivray, whose credits include "Everest" and "The Magic of Flight."

Three of his films are among the four screening Oct. 3-11 at OceanFest: 1995's "The Living Sea," narrated by Meryl Streep with music by Sting; 2000's "Dolphins," narrated by Pierce Brosnan with music by Sting; and 2003's "Coral Reef Adventure," narrated by Liam Neeson with music by Crosby, Stills & Nash.

The other giant-screen film is "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea," directed by Stephen Low and narrated by Ed Harris.

Decades of surfing triggered MacGillivray's interest in ocean life. "I continue to surf and I'm also a diver and so I've seen over the past 40 years a real change in the ocean quality and the quality of the reefs of the world," MacGillivray said, citing pollution and global warming for putting "ecosystems under stress."

The film festival is accompanied by other hands-on family activities at the California Science Center, including a tide pool, interactive coral reef exhibit and an inflatable sea creature for children to crawl through.

"The main thing is to make people aware that this is an environment that we are slowly killing and there are things we can do here on land to essentially treat the oceans better," MacGillivray said. "We can support leaders who recognize global warming as a danger. We can drive more fuel-efficient cars. ... Those are the things that we want people to think about and talk about."

By Anthony Breznican