Since it started its festival run at Sundance (where it picked up its first audience award) this tear-jerking doc film that keeps the worst for last has been terribly successful in seducing its audiences. Pegged with a July 31st release (via Roadside Attractions), Louie Psihoyos‘ The Cove has in the same weekend picked up a pair of East coast film festival awards – winning at both the Nantucket Film Fest and Silverdocs (the king of doc film festivals).
The Cove falls into the sub genre of documentary films that could be coined activism docs where you basically pick a pertinent subject, make a credible discourse and tugs at hearts and demands change in the best of manners. The docu does all this and despite a goofy Mission Impossible segment and the message really hits home when the main characters (dolphins) have zero public relations problems. In fact, replace the dolphin by another animal that you won’t find on a 12-month calendar from Zellers and I guarantee that it won’t make the waves that The Cove is currently making. My only hope is that future audiences who think that eating dead dolphin is blasphemy also see the irony in it all – how their compassion is reserved for a select few lucky non-human species only. Imagine the trouble filmmaker/activist Rob Stewart might have had in defending his cause with Sharkwater?
