Submersive Cinema

Comments (0) By Sebastian del Mármol Thursday, May 19 2011

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You won’t need goggles, a snorkel, or swim fins to attend the inaugural Underwater Film Festival this Saturday at the Miami Science Museum (3280 S. Miami Ave., Miami). But we can guarantee you’ll have more fun if you wear them. Actually, you won’t even have to get wet — unless you dig rubbing against stingrays (more about that in a bit). The museum has partnered with France’s World Festival of Underwater Images to highlight the best in aquatic cinema. At noon, Florida International University’s Dr. Mike Heithaus will kick off the English portion of the festival (the Frenchies get started at 10:30 a.m.) with a lecture followed by a series of family-friendly shorts and a feature-length film about crocs, Into the Dragon’s Lair. Nighttime screenings begin at 7:30 with shorts Free Fall (France), The Pier(Italy), and O Mar Das Cies(Spain) and conclude with the feature-length Equator, Rivers of the Sun (Japan). But it’s not all foreign cinema. Miami’s Coral Morphologic will screen its “Natural History” films, and Thomas Strom will present his Biscayne National Park photography. If you like getting grabby with sea life, however, there will be a new 3,000 gallon touch tank where you can molest live stingrays and run your hands through sea grass. Festival tickets cost $8 for adults and $5 for children. Visit miamisci.org.
Sat., May 28, 10:30 a.m., 2011