The Ocean Film Festival is a collection of short films celebrating the world’s oceans, featuring content on marine life, seafaring adventures, ocean sports, and conservation. It showcases diverse perspectives, from surfers and divers to scientists and artists, all dedicated to the sea. The festival’s goal is to inspire audiences to explore, respect, enjoy, and protect the ocean.
In the bar area were lots of environmental and conservation groups’ stalls and a nearly full auditorium of sea-loving punters bode well for the Brighton leg of the Ocean Film Festival World Tour.
The evening was expertly and passionately hosted by endurance athlete and sports and adventure presenter Carys Hughes, who informed us that the festival, sister to the Banff Mountain Film Festival, originated in Australia 12 years ago. And it was Down Under where we headed for the first of seven new films.
Astronaut in the Ocean told the story of bodyboarder, Shane Ackerman and started in true Aussie style with a barbie. Often considered a poor relation to surfing, there is no fame or fortune to be made, so we saw Shane working a day job in the local mining community to fund his dreams. We follow Shane as he seeks out new locations and to find his own identity and this was intercut with amazing footage of him on the water, tackling monstrously huge waves with spectacular wipeouts.
Souls followed underwater camera men and women, including nonaganerian oceanographer Sylvia Earle and Richard Pyle. Ever curious, the were always amazed at seeing changes and making new discoveries in coral reefs. There were tears at the sight of dead reefs and joy at hearing the sounds of living reefs. They remained optimistic for the kindness and curiosity of future generations to preserve underwater wildlife.
Aquaballet was introduced on screen by free diver Marianne Aventurier. This performance piece was beautifully shot by her partner Alex, who captured Alex dancing and interacting, at a respectful distance, with underwater flora and fauna. The highlight was seeing her swimming amongst groups of sharks and whales.
Between films Carys highlighted conservation projects including a campaign to save African Penguins and also encouraged audience members to enter the prize raffle that would be drawn after the interval.
We The Surfers proved to be one of the most interesting films and was filmed in Liberia by French surfer and director Arthur Bourbon. The powerful story showed how child soldiers used planks to surf until they either found an abandoned body board and how a group of Swiss German surfers donated surfboards which is now a thriving self-sufficient, inclusive surfing community in Robertsport. Samon, one of the locals, was one of the best surfers in Africa with Olympic dreams, but the dark side of the civil war detailed men living with the trauma of being forced to fight as children. Despite women and girls being poorly treated in the patriarchal society, it was encouraging to see a number of girls taking up the sport and competing in an all African surfing competition.
The prize draw took place after the interval, with several lucky entrants winning vouchers, guidebooks, a dry robe and a backpack filled with goodies.
Orca In The Arctic looked at whale watching in northern Norway. Alexandra Johnston marine conservationist joined Steve Truluck (orca conservationist) to witness pods of orca feeding on herring to build up their blubber to help them survive the extreme low temperatures. The film showed how they interact with the fishing boats and having to share feeding grounds with humpback and fin whales. The cinematography was excellent and my only complaint was that the film was too short.
We were then asked to vote on our favourite film with the chance to win more prizes and inform future festival selections.
Diving Into The Darkness was definitely not for the claustrophobic, as it looked at underwater cave diving. We learned that this subterannean world was less discovered by humans than the moon and expertly decribed as “swimming in the veins of Mother Earth“ by Canadian diver Jill Heinerth. An intercut animation film relayed how Jill became fascinated in underwater exploration and the influence of Jaques Cousteau on what became her life’s passion, despite having over 100 friends die while cave diving.The fascinating film covered early explorations in Antarctica to cave dive in the world’s largest iceberg, in sub-zero temperatures, that began with a perilous 12 day voyage from New Zealand. The film culminated in a nailbiting escape, where things went wrong and Jill was running out of decompression time, which thankfully she survived with seconds to spare.
The final showing was Let Me Live and told a similar tale as the festival’s opener but relocated to England’s surfing paradise with Cornish pro surfer Tom Lowe from St Ives. He was also working crap jobs to fund surfing trips around the world and with his good looks, tan and blonde hair he certainly looked the part, but was pleasantly down to earth and self deprecating. Collaborating with his talented photographer friend Mickey Smith, their infectious enthusiasm shone through and together they provided wonderful footage of Tom riding enormous waves.
The festival delivered a broad selection of ocean lovers from around the world and all featured majestic cinematography alongside thrilling adventure scenes. I look forward to seeing what they will have on offer at next year’s festival.
Ocean Film Festival
Brighton Dome Concert Hall,
Wednesday 8th October 2025
