Watch these great films to celebrate Shark Awareness Day!

By Alexandra Heilbron on July 14, 2020 | 1 Comment


Surprising Reasons to Save Sharks

It’s Shark Awareness Day today: July 14, 2020! Here are some amazing facts about sharks and ways you can make this day extra special.

The original hit movie Jaws was so much fun to watch — it’s actually thought of as a comedy rather than a horror film because it was so unrealistic. Kind of like the more recent Sharknado movies, which are hiliariously campy.  Legendary film critic Pauline Kael described Jaws in her 1975 review as being “funny in a Woody Allen way” and said it would leave audiences “convulsed with laughter.” Who can forget Roy Scheider’s line: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” which became a catch phrase.

Jaws fascinated people, inspiring some viewers to learn more about sharks. Award-winning filmmaker and biologist Rob Stewart is one of them. He learned at the age of nine that sharks are more afraid of humans than the other way around. When he discovered that up to 150 million sharks were being killed each year for their fins, he made his debut film, Sharkwater, which revealed that sharks don’t consider humans to be food. Apparently our flesh is pretty disgusting to them!

Rob’s next film was Revolution, which exposed the effects of ocean acidification — something that began when shark populations were decimated, leading to an increase in global warming. In it, we see Rob travel the world to discover how the world is affected by many things that are happening, but especially the decrease in shark populations — and how we can do our bit to help.

He followed that up with Sharkwater Extinction, because although Sharkwater was the catalyst for many things to change, it wasn’t enough. Sharks were still being killed and sharks were being found in food and cosmetics. His dangerous journey is much more scary than anything that happened in Jaws — because the people who are killing sharks are also known as the shark mafia — and they are dangerous.

Check out these other films by award-winning filmmakers and cinematographers such as Madison Stewart, Andy Casagrande, Shawn Heinrichs, David Hannan and more.

More films about sharks, the ocean and the environment:

Legend of Deep Blue (2019)
Sea of Life (2017)
Blue (2017)
Chasing Coral (2017)
An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power (2017)
Sharks Among Us (2016)
Mission Blue (2014)
Shark Girl (2014)
Extinction Soup (2014)
Great White Shark: Beyond the Cage of Fear (2013)
Before the Flood (2016)
Racing Extinction (2015)
Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (2014)
The 11th Hour (2011)
Shark Attack Survival Guide (2010)
Summer of the Sharks (2009)
The Cove (2009)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

Happy Shark Awareness Day!

For more information on saving sharks, click here. ~Alexandra Heilbron



Comments & Discussion

  1. Jason • July 14, 2020 @ 6:39 PM

    So true about Jaws. Unintentionally funny.


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