In a sleepy lagoon off the coast of Japan was once a shocking secret. A secret that a few desperate men made sure would be no longer kept hidden from the world: thousands of dolphins were, and still are, being captured and sold to the world’s theme parks. Those who don’t make the cut are horrifically tortured and slaughtered—their mercury-laden meat sold under the guise of being “acceptable” flesh for consumption to an unsuspecting Japanese public. It’s a real life horror story—one that is now well and truly public.
The men who risked their lives to tell the world about this atrocity include Louise Psihoyos, a director with a cause who has not only caught the world’s attention, but also the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences, with his film, The Cove, which is up for best documentary at the Awards this weekend (March 7).
The Cove begins in Taiji, Japan, where former dolphin trainer Ric O’Barry has come to set things right after a long search for redemption. In the 1960s, it was O’Barry who captured and trained the five dolphins who played the title character in the international television sensation “Flipper.” But his close relationship with those dolphins – the very dolphins who sparked a global fascination with trained sea mammals that continues to this day — led O’Barry to a radical change of heart. One fateful day, a heartbroken Barry came to realise that these deeply sensitive, highly intelligent and self-aware creatures so beautifully adapted to life in the open ocean must never be subjected to human captivity again.
It wasn’t until years after this realisation that Ric met Louie and the idea for The Cove was born, and more importantly, put into action.
With Jim Clark, Louie also created The Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS), in 2005. The non-profit organization provides an exclusive lens for the public and media to observe the beauty as well as the destruction of the oceans, while motivating change.
I recently caught up with Louie to talk about what it took to plan, shoot and promote the eco-thriller film. Stay tuned for an interview with Ric O’Barry in the coming days.
Firstly Louie, congratulations in such an incredible documentary. How long did it take to make from idea to final print?
The film took about three and a half years to make, but Laurie David, who produced An Inconvenient Truth told me a year ago that when you’re done making a documentary you’re only halfway there. The film came out a year ago this week and I’m still out promoting the movie. But fortunately most of the traveling is going to film festivals around the world that are in amazing beautiful places meeting great people who are passionate about films so I’m learning a lot at the same time, and not just talking about our film. And at the film festivals the film has been received very well, mostly standing ovations. Even at the Tokyo Film Festival the response was amazing – we had as much media coverage as Avatar.
How did the idea evolve?
I had just started a non-profit organization called The Oceanic Preservation Society (OPS) with the help of my dive friend, Jim Clark who is an extraordinary visionary. When president John F. Kennedy called for Americans to put a man on the moon back in 1961, it was Jim, at age 26 created and sped the computers to make that possible. Jim is now an inventor and a venture capitalists, kind of a serial entrepreneur. He founded Silicon Graphics, which was the Apple Computer of it’s day, the chip Jim built allowed objects to be constructed in 3-D which allowed movies like Jurassic Park to be made. The day he quit that business he started Netscape, the first commercial Internet browser which was the first avenue that many of us got on the so-called information super highway. The third billion-dollar company he created he joked that he started to prove that the first two were not just luck, but I used information from that medical website to save my mother’s life last year. When Jim funded OPS to make films and create still images to try to create awareness about ocean issues, I reminded him that saving the oceans wasn’t going to be a billion dollar industry and he told me, “I’m not worried about making money, just make a difference.”
There is much responsibility in being entrusted with funds from a friend and a man I regard so highly with so many personal accomplishments but making a difference is the driving motivation for OPS to do everything we do. I always told the film crew that we’re not making a movie, we’re starting a movement to save the oceans. This higher goal informs all of our decisions.
How did you come to meet Ric O’Barry?
Two months after starting OPS I was at a marine mammal conference in San Diego and Ric O’Barry was supposed to be the keynote speaker at the event of mostly PhD speakers. I was looking forward to hearing someone from popular culture speak after a week of quite a few fairly boring talks. But at the last moment, the sponsor of the event, SeaWorld, cut him from the program. I was curious why so I called Ric and he said that they wouldn’t let him talk because he was going to speak about the captive dolphin industry and the world’s largest slaughter of dolphins on the planet.
I had never heard about the captive dolphin industry nor killing of dolphins so I asked him who was doing anything about it and he said right now it was just him and he was going next week, would I like to come to Taiji with him. Driving into Taiji was like driving into a ready made horror film set. On the surface they appear to love dolphins and whales, there’s even a sign coming into town with Anime-style drawings of dolphins that says in English, “We love dolphins.” However right in the center of town lies the Cove. This is in a Japanese National Park, where even Japanese people can’t get into because of the steel gates, keep-out signs, barbed wire, dogs and guards. This is the cove where these crimes against nature and humanity occur – right in the middle of a nature preserve!
Last night an interesting documentary caught my eye. Half Ton Son, from Britain’s Channel 4, told the story of Billy, a 19 year old boy who was restricted to his bedroom due to his chronic obesity.
His mother helped greatly to fuel his illness (perhaps initally at a sub conscious level) in order to keep her son close and dependent. Through her own lack of education about nutrition, she fed her son on elaborate helpings of burgers, fries and basically anything dead, deep fried and drowned in high fructose corn syrup-laden ketchup.
The doco followed Billy as he was admitted to hospital to undergo surgery to remove some of his fat stores, encouraged to exercise and adopt a healthier way of eating (see preview video below).
After leaving hospital at half his original weight, the first meal Billy’s mum served him up as a reward for his hard work was a hot dog. There’s certainly a lot wrong with this picture, no doubt. But who’s fault is it? Billy for eating in excess? His mother for feeding him toxic food? The education system? Or perhaps the big companies who market their deadly wares without concern for the consumer?
It made me think a lot about what we’re teaching (or not teaching) our kids in school. For years, the food pyramid that was taught to most of us was sponsored by the meat and dairy industries. Of course their products will come highly recommended as healthy and must-additions to the every day diet. But why did our governments allow such outright lies to be printed and promoted? Self-interests perhaps. The millions of dollars involved, quite possibly.
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I recently blogged about how important it is to cleanse between the full and new moons, so that’s what I did this month: armed with the how-to from Andreas Moritz’s The Amazing Liver and Gallbladder Flush. Without going into too much detail, the six days of drinking a litre of organic apple juice a day, before the the seventh day of the flush, were well worth the time invested.
I consider myself to be a very healthy gal, although my carefree 20s likely contributed to some of the toxins released during this all-important health-boosting cleanse. Also being around household cleaning chemicals, hairspray, dousing myself with the latest hip fragrance and eating animal products would have definitely added to my toxicity.
A day after the flush and I feel light, positive and have a mental clarity that wasn’t quite there before.
According to many religions and spiritual cultures, particularly Native Americans, Shamanism and Wicca, the New Moon represents new beginnings and is a great time to perform rituals and cleanses.
See my original post here.
Speaking of new moons, the actress who’s replacing Rachelle Lefevre (who played Victoria in the first two Twilight installments) is Bryce Dallas Howard (below). Bryce had been a vegan before switching to vegetarianism during pregnancy. She went vegan after watching the Joaquin Phoenix-narrated documentary, Earthlings.
A lot of big business has benefited from the rise of diseases such as cancer and diabetes (think pharmaceutical companies, multi-billion dollar charities etc). I love (note sarcasm) how some brands of margarine are marketed as having the ability to lower cholesterol. Who regulates this stuff? It’s just another reason why it’s so important to never believe marketing hype on any product. Ever.
Okay, whinge over.
The purpose of my post is to highlight a documentary I highly recommend to anyone who’s suffering from any type of diabetes, or any dis-ease for that matter. Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days is a movie featuring some of my favourite people in-the-know: Woody Harrelson, Tony Robbins, David Wolfe and Dr. Gabriel Cousens.
It’s an independent doco (see trailer below) that chronicles six Americans with diabetes who switch to a diet of vegan, organic, uncooked food to reverse disease without pharmaceutical medication. The six are challenged to give up meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, soda, junk food, fast food, processed food, packaged food, and cooked food for 30 days. The results are inspiring and undoubtedly would give hope to people who want to be disease-free.
Imagine seeing an end to the likes of “World Diabetes Day” (which was yesterday) and products emblazoned with pink ribbons. Enough of big businesses making money from illnesses and multi-gazillion dollar research that only offers a band-aid “solution”. If we all become our own doctors and refuse to put anything into our bodies that’s not as nature intended, the problem, I sincerely believe, will be a problem no more.
Here are some great quotes from the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates.
“If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”
“Whenever a doctor cannot do good, he must be kept from doing harm.”
“Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity.”
“It’s far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has”
“Walking is man’s best medicine”
“Everything in excess is opposed to nature.”
“As to diseases, make a habit of two things – to help, or at least, to do no harm.”
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
