Deep underwater secrets surface at Cairns festival
THE glories of the deep will light up the sixth Cairns Underwater Film Festival with the winners of the photo and film competition to be announced on August 25 at the Cairns Civic Theatre.
Turtles, sharks, and spectacular coral featured strongly this year across categories ranging from wide angle to macro, creative and short video.
"We've had over 80 entrants with a couple of hundred individual submissions," Cairns Underwater Film Festival board member Xanthe Rivett said.
"It's really exciting because the local, national and international talent is of a very high calibre."
Finalists and winning works will be displayed on the night with a pool of $45,000 in prizemoney up for grabs.
Then come the films from the world's best underwater film-makers.
Far Northern film-maker Dave Miller's movie Oceans of Angels captures interactions between marine animals such as octopus, sharks, squid, cuttlefish and ghost pipefish.
Josh Jensen's film Scuba Surfing is about the fun that can be had underwater.
And then there is North Stradbroke Island film-maker David Hannan, who shot a lot of the reef footage for his movie, Planet Ocean, in Papua New Guinea, as well as on the Great Barrier Reef and the Coral Sea.
"It is shot so beautifully and sometimes you might find it slightly awful but it is compelling," he said.
It is an international documentary about the links between man and ocean, the governance of the seas and the challenges of the future.
The movie had its premiere at the Earth Summit in Rio in June and will be shown at the festival before it is released widely in late 2012.
The Cairns Underwater Film Festival is at Cairns Civic Theatre on August 25, from 6.30pm. Tickets $29, concessions apply. To book, visit www.ticketlink.com.au or call 1300 855 835.
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Water wonders: Harry Otoi's entry in the diver category is one of the stunning photographs that will feature in the sixth Cairns Underwater Film Festival.
