Here is the link to get tickets:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chasing-coral-screening-ask-a-scientist-tic...

 

The Estuary & Ocean Science Center Film Series is presented in proud partnership with the International Ocean Film Festival [www.oceanfilmfest.org]. Chasing Coral is the 2nd film in the series and won the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival.

 

Chasing Coral - Coral reefs are the nursery for all life in the oceans, a remarkable ecosystem that sustains us. Yet with carbon emissions warming the seas, a phenomenon called “coral bleaching”—a sign of mass coral death—has been accelerating around the world, and the public has no idea of the scale or implication of the catastrophe silently raging underwater.

 

Enter Jeff Orlowski, director of Chasing Ice, which created irrefutable, visual proof of the melting ice caps. Orlowski’s next project is similarly evidentiary and powerful. Chasing Coral taps into the collective will and wisdom of an ad man, a self-proclaimed coral nerd, top-notch camera designers, and renowned marine biologists as they invent the first time-lapse camera to record bleaching events as they happen. Unfortunately, the effort is anything but simple, and the team doggedly battles technical malfunctions and the force of nature in pursuit of their golden fleece: documenting the indisputable and tragic transformation below the waves. With its breathtaking photography, nail-biting suspense, and startling emotion, Chasing Coral is a dramatic revelation that won’t have audiences sitting idle for long. [1 hour 33 minutes]

 

Ask a Scientist! - featuring Dr. Frances Wilkerson, a biological oceanographer who studies microscopic plants that live in the ocean called phytoplankton. These tiny, single-celled microbes use light energy from the sun together with carbon dioxide and nutrients dissolved in seawater to grow and support most of the life in the sea. And some of these have a very special "symbiotic" relationship with corals too. Dr. Wilkerson teaches about phytoplankton, corals and other symbiotic relationships in the sea at SF State and knows many of the scientists in this film. Her research lab, based at the EOS Center, also studies oceanic carbon cycles and the impacts of global climate change on the ocean in San Francisco Bay, off the coast of California and in the equatorial Pacific.

 

Doors & snack bar open at 6pm, film starts at 6:30pm.

 

Photo courtesy of Netflix from Chasing Coral (Exposure Labs)