Over 84 extraordinary minutes, Coral Sea Dreaming – Awaken enters into the very heart of life – and death – on a coral reef. It is a story that spans 500 million years and stars some of the most exotic and wondrous marine creatures on earth. Coral is the planets greatest natural architect, and coral reefs boast the highest biodiversity of any ecosystem.
Emmy Award-winning cinematographer David Hannan has filmed for 7 years to create this magnificent testimony to our extraordinary undersea world, set to an original score by Tania Rose. We meet thousands of reef inhabitants, from ancient turtles to feeding sharks, adorably pygmy seahorses and savage sea slugs, witness a manta ray ballet and courting octopus.
Specialised state-of-the-art High Definition technology captures these lives with unprecedented intimacy, illustrating elaborate courtship displays, mating rituals, feeding frenzies, intense night-time predation, cannibalism and chemical warfare. Many of the sequences have never been filmed before. Some may never be filmed again. Corals have survived 5 mass extinctions. But can they survive us?
Filmed over 2000 dives on three great coral reef ecosystems; The Great Barrier Reef, Ningaloo Reef and Papua New Guinea, Coral Sea Dreaming – Awaken is a celebration of reefs now under threat of climate change and ocean acidification. There is much to be done to safeguard these precious ecosystems for future generations. And very little time to do it.