Swimming with the Sharks

BY LIZ CROMPTON

In Rob Stewart’s world, “swimming with the sharks” doesn’t have ominous connotations. That’s because the Toronto filmmaker, who’d always been fascinated with the creatures, did swim with them, seeing his first shark close up at age 8 when he was free diving in the Cayman Islands. He thinks humans’ revulsion of the prehistoric ocean dwellers is due to ignorance and fear, whipped up by negative portrayals in media and novels. Jaws was a great movie, but it didn’t help the shark’s plight.

Plight? Indeed, sharks are under attack. According to Greenpeace, more than 100 million sharks are killed each year for their fins—shark fin soup is considered a delicacy in Asia. “Finning” involves cutting off the fins and dumping the rest of the body overboard—often while it is alive. Unable to swim, the shark drowns or starves to death. Some countries have banned finning, but poaching is rampant because of how profitable it is: One pound of dried shark fin can retail for $300 dollars or more.

Shocked by these stats and frustrated by the public’s apathy, Stewart felt compelled to take action. “I wanted to make a film that shows sharks the way they really are—beautiful and magnificent creatures that don't want to hurt humans—and to show how our fear has blinded us to the fact that their populations have been reduced by 90 percent over the last 50 years,” he says in the director’s statement for Sharkwater.

So, the wildlife photographer and expert diver, now 27, decided to film a documentary with pretty pictures of sharks swimming around, minding their own business. What he got after he teamed up with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, however, was a series of life-and-death encounters: Their boat was rammed by pirate poachers; the crew faced charges of attempted murder, which forced them to flee to international waters in a high-speed chase; he uncovered corruption and espionage; and he almost lost his leg—and life—to what’s known as flesh-eating disease.

“I went to shoot pretty pictures and ended up with this crazy human drama,” he told rd.ca on the eve of Sharkwater’s March 23 release at theatres across Canada. After recovering his health, he persevered to shoot hundreds of hours of footage in more than a dozen countries. The result of his four years’ travail is a tale of greedy humans slaughtering millions of creatures that he hopes will help turn the tide of the public’s perception of the shark.

Was it worth it? “It was a beautiful experience in the end,” he said. “It’s been a difficult process, but [that] made it even better.”

Sharkwater has earned an impressive clutch of awards at festivals since it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006. “It’s all really cool, because it’s a conservation movie. I think it’s a really good sign that people are enjoying it,” Stewart said.

To see the trailer, learn more about sharks and the making of the documentary, go to www.sharkwater.com.