  In his gripping and award-winning film Sharkwater, filmmaker ROB STEWART risks his own life to bring moviegoers closer to sharks than ever before. Sharkwater, Rob Stewart's intense, true-life action adventure film began five years ago as a much different project. "I had set out to shoot an underwater documentary and instead shot this human drama," said Stewart, an expert diver and underwater photographer with a lifelong interest in sharks. The action began when Stewart, 27, joined members of the Los Angeles-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society aboard the Ocean Warrior on an expedition to deter shark poaching in both Costa Rica and Ecuador. 
While onboard, their ship was involved in a violent confrontation with a
Costa Rican fishing boat illegally fishing for sharks in Guatemalan
waters. That one event turned Stewart's plans to make a "beautiful underwater movie" upside down. This forced him to make some heroic choices and turn the camera on himself, recording the remarkable events that would unfold including an arrest, espionage and a life-threatening illness. "While shooting this film, I encountered every obstacle imaginable, including a billion dollar shark fishing industry," says Stewart. "There was so much stacked against this movie, that making it became a mission to expose this industry and to stay alive." Stewart's fascination with the oceans' top predator began when he saw his first shark close-up while free diving in the Cayman Islands. "I was amazed because it was so cool to see something so big and so powerful and so perfect," says the Toronto-born director. But despite surviving longer than any other large animal on earth, their populations are rapidly declining. In fact, the numbers of some shark species have fallen more than 90 per cent. In order to save sharks from extinction, Stewart hopes to change people's perceptions of this misunderstood animal. "There is a lot we can learn from sharks. They are a beautiful example of a creature that's managed to live in balance on earth-and survive. I believe we need a new relationship with the natural world. For humans to survive on earth beyond the next hundred years, caring for the environment has to become cool."
|
