EXECUTIVE PRODUCER – SOSF

The Save Our Seas Foundation (SOSF) is a non-profit organization that establishes and supports scientific research and educational projects focused on the need to preserve and protect our world’s oceans. Its initiatives provide key information about the importance of maintaining the delicate ecological balance in marine ecosystems. The organization holds an all-encompassing approach to marine conservation. It supports research projects, which have direct conservation outcomes and then implements conservation measures. Raising awareness is one of SOSF’s key mandates and by spreading knowledge it aims to inspire people to appreciate the intricate nature of how we are all bound to the health of the sea. Teaching the children of today to be custodians of our marine world tomorrow is as important as the research and conservation. Through the production of Turtle: The Incredible Journey SOSF hopes to promote marine turtle conservation. It currently supports several turtle research projects across the globe, including work in Florida, the Seychelles, Malaysia, Hawaii and Kenya. 

Turtle: The Incredible Journey is SOSF’s first cinema release. It has all the elements of the organization's shorter conservation films – an amusing, entertaining, and inspiring film that leaves an insightful impression on the plight of a sea turtle.

Read the article in the telegraph.co.uk here.

BIG WAVE

Big Wave is one of the world’s leading wildlife producers. Formed in 1998 by Sarah Cunliffe and Nick Stringer the company is well known for making award-winning programming for broadcasters worldwide. With over 40 hours of award winning television to their name, Big Wave has an impressive track record for turning out quality, entertaining programming, working for broadcasters ranging from the BBC, Fox US Networks, France 5, National Geographic, Kabel1, Animal Planet Channel Four, FIVE, and the Discovery Channel.
 
Turtle: The Incredible Journey is Big Wave’s first feature documentary production, directed by Nick Stringer, narrated by two-times Oscar-nominated Miranda Richardson and produced by Sarah Cunliffe.

Download the press release here.

FILM & MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT

Film & Music Entertainment is one of the UK’s most successful and prolific independent production companies. It was formed by Mike Downey and Sam Taylor in January 2000 with the aim of financing and producing feature films. Stephen Daldry (two-times Oscar-nominated, director of Billy Elliott and The Hours) acts as Chairman of the board and as executive producer. With over 30 films under our belt, including a winner of the Golden Lion in Venice, an Academy Award Nominee and multiple official entries in the Sundance, Berlin, Montreal, Toronto, San Sebastian and Locarno film festivals, the Film and Music Entertainment brand has over the last eight years become synonymous with the production of quality feature films with a wide variety of British, American and European authors, notably, Gunter Grass, Thomas Kennealy and James Ellroy. 


FROM THE DIRECTOR NICK STRINGER

"Cinema breathes new life into our understanding of the natural world; it captivates us in a much more emotional and experiential way. It should be no surprise that we see natural history films in the cinema, there’s no better place for the panoramic views and extraordinary wildlife of this beautiful planet.

I’ve always wanted to tell a story of the sea, it’s the cradle of all life, the great abyss in which all life on Earth began. It has a deep spiritual resonance, a mood and character that is all-powerful, it humbles you and one senses that, ultimately, it controls everything and keeps the planet alive. But it is truly a hidden and inhospitable world, our own inner space, and through it runs the great secret pathways of ancient nomads and travellers.

There are so many unknown journeys in the ocean, but the loggerhead’s odyssey around the North Atlantic is one of the few we’re beginning to understand, and it is truly epic. It begins from the moment she is born and lasts throughout the next 25 years of her life. It takes her around the entire North Atlantic and ultimately back to the coast where she was born. In many ways the turtle embodies our relationship with the ocean, once a land dweller it dared to go back to the ocean and make it home, but the turtle is still something of an alien in the ocean world, it still has to breathe air and inevitably must return to the land to lay eggs. It’s incredibly moving to see a turtle hauling its great weight from the sea at night after decades of travelling at sea.

I wanted to know more about her story, I wanted to immerse the audience in her world and experience her odyssey through her eyes.

The experience is everything. My vision was to transport the audience into her world, to meet the other great nomads of the ocean and experience the journey through her eyes."


NARRATION BY TWO TIME ACADEMY AWARD© NOMINEE MIRANDA RICHARDSON

Miranda Richardson’s impressive filmography and acting career includes among other films the upcoming “The Young Victoria” by filmmaker Jean Marc Valleé, “Paris, je táime”, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”, The Phantom of the Opera”, “The Hours” alongside Nicole Kidman, “Snow White”, “Sleepy Hollow”, “The Big Brass Ring”, “Alice in Wonderland”.
 
Miranda gave her voice to the animated character Anna Conda in “A Fox´s Tale”, Mrs. Tweedy in “Chicken Run” and narrated “Turtle: The Incredible Journey” in October 2008 in London.
 
Among the numerous Awards and Nominations, Miranda was nominated for Academy Award® Best Actress for “Tom and Vic” (1994) and Academy Award® Best Actress in Supporting Role for “Damage” (1992).

SCIENTIFIC CONSULTANT TO TURTLE: THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY AND SOSF PROJECT LEADER PROFESSOR JEANETTE WYNEKEN
 
Professor Jeanette Wyneken from Florida Atlantic University (FAU) is one of the world’s leading turtle biologists and the film’s key science consultant. She has been studying turtles for more than 25 years and has published numerous articles and definitive books including The Biology of Sea Turtles, The Biology of Turtles, and The Anatomy of Sea Turtles. She runs the FAU Marine Sea Turtle Research Program at the Gumbo Limbo Environmental Complex where the film crew was based throughout filming of Turtle: The Incredible Journey. Her expertise and knowledge ensured that the crew was able to film some unique turtle behaviour in the wild and with the turtles at Gumbo Limbo. Her passion and commitment for turtles and marine conservation were a great source of inspiration for the film crew in often challenging and arduous shoots. Her diligence and dedication to her science have ensured that the film reflects the true depiction of the loggerhead story.

“These animals are in a lot of trouble right now, the timing is right to tell their story before it disappears. We know more about the loggerhead than any other sea turtle, so we can connect the pieces and tell their story. The journey is their story. But it’s also telling us more about the state of the oceans; it’s helping us to understand what’s happening in the ocean at large and highlights how we need to protect it.”

JEANETTE WYNEKEN