Great Bay Stewards Presents Albatross: A Free Documentary Film Showing

Description

On Thursday, April 18, 2019 at 6:30pm join the Great Bay Stewards at the Hugh Gregg Coastal Conservation Center for a free screening of the acclaimed documentary Albatross. Albatross is a film about humanity told through the plight of a population of seabirds. It is a powerful visual journey into the heart of a gut-wrenching environmental tragedy. It is also a love story — a film that speaks to human emotion, challenging our complicity in the face of destruction and calling for a reexamination of the interconnected role we play within the global ecosystem.

Albatross takes place on the Midway atoll, located in the middle of the remote North Pacific Ocean and the farthest you can get from any continent on Earth. There, tens of thousands of Laysan albatross chicks lie dead on the ground, their bodies filled with plastic. Artist and filmmaker Chris Jordan first journeyed to Midway in 2009. He returned again and again over the course of eight years with his team, documenting the cycles of life and death, and capturing stunning and intimate portraits of these magnificent seabirds. Jordan’s images of dead seabirds with stomachs full of everyday household items are some of the most widely circulated and shocking depictions of the reality we now face, together, as a society addicted to a flawed material: plastic. He tells the story behind these images in Albatross, a film that steps beyond the traditional model of a nature documentary and defines a category of its own.

Director Chris Jordan describes the motivations of the Midway Project as a drive to “convey the intensely vivid sensual, emotional, and spiritual experience of being with [the birds] on the island.” The intimacy of the birds’ nurturing and cyclical lives is starkly contrasted by the shocking images portraying the devastation of the effects of an unhealthy ocean.

“The Great Bay Stewards are fortunate to be able to show this important documentary” says Allison Knab, executive director of the Stewards. “It just one way that we can help to educate the public about the effects of plastics in the ocean, and it is our hope that each person who comes to view the documentary will make just one small change to decrease the amount of plastic they use in their daily lives.”

The documentary runs 97 minutes and is recommended for those 12 and older. This event is free to those that attend the showing. Beverages and popcorn will be provided.

For more information about the free screening, please contact Allison Knab, Executive Director, Great Bay Stewards at allison.knab@greatbaystewards.org or 603-778-0015.