Sundance Film Festival: we are proud to announce that the documentary ‘SEA OF SHADOWS’ has been selected for the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the SUNDANCE Film Festival 2019 (World Premiere).
The documentary features the investigative work done in Mexico by our incredibly talented team of undercover agents, including a former top FBI Special Agent, trying to save the Vaquita, the rarest and most endangered whale in the world.
In response to the dire circumstances facing the vaquita as by-catch of the illegal totoaba trade, ELI commenced an investigation and intelligence gathering operation called Operation Fake Gold. After 14 months of work on two continents, EAL has mapped the entire illicit totoaba maw (swim bladder) supply chain. The investigation took ELI’s Wildlife Crime Division agents from the Baja California peninsula to Southern China’s Guangdong Province. Read here the report of Operation Fake Gold.
Official Synopsys
A looming disaster in one of the most spectacular environments on Earth sparks a rescue mission unlike any other in Sea of Shadows, a riveting new documentary with the intensity of a Hollywood thriller. When Mexican drug cartels and Chinese traffickers join forces to poach the rare totoaba fish in the Sea of Cortez, their deadly methods threaten to destroy virtually all marine life in the region, including the elusive and mysterious whale species known as the vaquita porpoise. But a team of brilliant scientists, high-tech conservationists, investigative journalists and courageous undercover agents as well as the Mexican Navy put their lives on the line to save the last remaining vaquita and bring the vicious international crime syndicate to justice.
Co-produced by Terra Mater Factual Studios and Appian Way. Directed by Richard Ladkani.
Official Synopsys
A looming disaster in one of the most spectacular environments on Earth sparks a rescue mission unlike any other in Sea of Shadows, a riveting new documentary with the intensity of a Hollywood thriller. When Mexican drug cartels and Chinese traffickers join forces to poach the rare totoaba fish in the Sea of Cortez, their deadly methods threaten to destroy virtually all marine life in the region, including the elusive and mysterious whale species known as the vaquita porpoise. But a team of brilliant scientists, high-tech conservationists, investigative journalists and courageous undercover agents as well as the Mexican Navy put their lives on the line to save the last remaining vaquita and bring the vicious international crime syndicate to justice.
Co-produced by Terra Mater Factual Studios and Appian Way. Directed by Richard Ladkani.
Click here for all the documentaries and films accepted at the Sundance Film Festival 2019.
