2019 Martha’s Vineyard Environmental Film Festival: SEA OF SHADOWS

Special guest — Michael Moore, Director of the WHOI Marine Mammal Center

Sea of Shadows is a feature documentary thriller that follows undercover investigators, environmentalists, journalists, and the Mexican Navy on their desperate last-minute effort to rescue the Earth’s smallest whale-the Vaquita-from extinction. A looming disaster in one of the most spectacular environments on Earth sparks a rescue mission unlike any other in Sea of Shadows, a riveting new documentary with the intensity of a Hollywood thriller. When Mexican drug cartels and Chinese traffickers join forces to poach the rare totoaba fish in the Sea of Cortez, their deadly methods threaten to destroy virtually all marine life in the region, including the elusive and mysterious whale species known as the vaquita porpoise. But a team of brilliant scientists, high-tech conservationists, investigative journalists, and courageous undercover agents put their lives on the line to save the last remaining vaquita and bring the vicious international crime syndicate to justice.

Michael Moore, Vet. M.B., Ph.D., has a veterinary degree from the University of Cambridge in the UK, and a Ph.D. from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA. He has been based at WHOI in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, since 1986 where he is now a Senior Scientist. He is Director of the WHOI Marine Mammal Center and provides veterinary support to the Marine Mammal Rescue and Research Division of the International Fund for Animal Welfare, supporting their work with stranded marine mammals on Cape Cod.  His research encompasses the forensic analysis of marine mammal mortalities, especially in regard to the accurate diagnosis of perceived human impacts and the prevalence of zoonotic agents, large whale health assessment at sea using unmanned aerial systems, the interaction of natural and man-made impacts on fish and marine mammal stocks, development of systems to enhance medical intervention with large whales, and the pathophysiology of marine mammal diving.

“An environmentally conscious, unabashedly heart-grabbing exposé.” – Variety

“Heroic and heartrending.” – Hollywood Reporter