BLUE Ocean Film Festival announced the festival’s 2010 award winning films at the BLUE Carpet Awards held at the Golden State Theater in Monterey. The award ceremony also honored great leaders in ocean conservation.

The Best of Festival award went to “Bag It!” by Reel Thing. The film follows a self-proclaimed “average guy” who undertakes a global pilgrimage to explore the plastic in our world and to understand its impact on the health of our bodies and our world. The film also debunks the idea of disposable, single-use plastic. Last year’s Best of Festival was presented to The Cove, which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2010.

Disneynature’s epic documentary “OCEANS,” narrated by Pierce Brosnan, walked away with Best Original Music Score and Best Theatrical film, offering a never-before-seen look at astounding creatures beneath the sea.

Other awards presented at the BLUE Carpet Awards included:


Best Broadcast Film: Sea Studio Foundation/NatGeo “Strange Days on Planet Earth: Dirty Secrets”.
Best Film on Marine Animal Behavior: “Life: Fish” by the BBC.
Best Non-Broadcast Film: Mountain and Sea Productions’ “Isla Holbox – Whale Shark Island”.
Best Film on Land-Sea Connection: “Bering Sea: Ecosystem in Crisis” by Brent Balalas.
Best Ocean Exploration and Adventure Film: “Jean Michel Cousteau Ocean Adventures: America’s Underwater Treasures” by Ocean Futures Society.
Best Children’s Programming: “The Krill is Gone” by Deep Green Films.
Best Dot Doc: “Willem and the Whales” by MMCTA.
Best Ocean Sports Film: “The Ultimate Wave Tahiti” by Perfect Wave Inc.
Best Underwater Cinematography: NHU Africa’s “Into the Dragon’s Lair”.
Emerging Underwater Filmmaker: Andrew Stevenson’s “Where the Whales Sing”.
Best Short Film: “Acid Test: The Global Challenge of Ocean Acidification” by NRDC and Sherry Goldberg.
Best Monterey Bay Feature: “Il Mare di Joe” by ETHNOS and Enzo Incontro.
Best National Marine Sanctuary Short: “In the Wake of Giants”, by Akua Films.
Best Student Filmmaker: “Chasing Giants” by Chris Hanson and Chris Fedor.
Best Marine Earth Sciences Film: “One Ocean: Changing Seas” by Merit Moron Pictures.
Best Spanish Language Film: “Luchando Por La Vida, Una Historia Del Mar” by Carlos Roberto Riveras.
Special Jury Award: “Under the Sea 3D” by Howard and Michelle Hall.

Premiering at BLUE were films “SoLa, Louisiana Water Stories” by Oceans 8, “Beneath the Blue” by Michael D. Sellers and “Confessions of an Eco-Terrorist” by Bluerage Media and Peter Brown.

At the BLUE Carpet Awards Ceremony, the BLUE Ocean Film Festival also introduced two prestigious awards for outstanding accomplishments in environmental stewardship:


The “Making Waves Award” honors those, who, in the words of the West Point Cadet Maxim, “risk more than others think is safe, care more than others think is wise, dream more than others think is practical, and expect more that others think is possible.” This year, Jean-Michel Cousteau, son Fabien Cousteau and daughter Celine Cousteau were honored with a special tribute to patriarch and pioneering ocean adventurer Jacques Yves Cousteau.


The “Sylvia Earle Award” for outstanding ocean advocacy was presented to Dr. Carl Safina for his accomplishments in the areas of conservation policy and environmental stewardship.

Other featured guests at the festival included Julie Packard, David Doubilet, Don Hahn, Howard Hall, Bob Talbot, Greg Stone and other film and environmental ocean leaders.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium was the presenting sponsor for this year’s BLUE Ocean Film Festival. Other lead sponsors included Cannery Row Company, Amphibico, Scott Hanson Studios, NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, Make a Difference Media, Code Blue Foundation, Ocean Today, Google, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Portola Hotel & Spa, City of Monterey, Disneynature, Panasonic, Dolby, Christie, MacGillivray Freeman Foundation, Monterey County Weekly, Monterey Conference Center, Fujinon, ImmersionOOH, Light & Motion, PADI, National Ocean Service, National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, FootageSearch/ OceanFootage, Backscatter, beBLUU, Center for Environmental Filmmaking, Pebble Beach Company, Sea Studios Foundation, KUSP, Oceana, International League of Conservation Photographers, Sanibel Sea School, The Curtis and Edith Munson Foundation, Environmental Relations, Lighthouse Cinemas, Shark Research Institute, National Geographic, ARKive, SeaWeb, Center for Ocean Solutions, Oceanwide Expeditions, Realscreen, MMCTA, Display Point Holdings, Inc., Sun-plugged, Max Davis Company, Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, Plastic Pollution Coalition, Feodor Pitcairn Productions, The Robert S. & Grayce B. Kerr Foundation, World-Wire, KION46, Coastal Television Network, “Thank You Ocean” and The Inns of Monterey.