[Victoria, BC] Tide Lines Sweeps Back into Victoria Nov 17th!

Tide Lines is more than just a documentary about two brothers and a friend setting sail from Vancouver Island to the Polynesian Islands to south of Africa to the Panama and home. It may have started out as a project to look at their journey, complete with a mini-biography about Ryan and Bryson Robertson and Hugh Patterson, but during the making of this film, it evolved to become another type of movie. The three-year journey these individuals undertook showed how they are discovering how different cultures are currently reacting to a global problem: what are the denizens of this planet doing to clean up the beaches that’s littered with trash? Scattered around them and floating within Earth’s many oceans are plastic debris of all sorts, bottles and all kinds of junk. Not everyone knows about the Great Pacific or North Atlantic Garbage Patch that’s just only growing beneath the waters of the five major oceanic gyres.

Fortunately, this documentary does not condemn what this planet’s dominant species has done. It shows what this team of sailors who love surfing are doing to educate the people they meet about this problem. Not only are they helping various communities develop initiatives to clean the beaches but also they are showing just how much of an impact they are making at each port they land in. This film’s hope is to inspire viewers to be mindful of the products being used and where it is being thrown away — will it go into recycling or haphazardly tossed away? It succeeds. Even the cinematography and the emotional appeal are top-notch.

The humanitarian effort put into constructing this film is very noticeable, and it will do well in film festivals and art house screenings. There’s a party to be found in this movie and that’s because of the music used to keep the story light-hearted. The music by Scott Stanton of Current Swell, Tahuna Breaks, Vince Vaccaro and Jon and Roy nicely complements the visual narrative.

This film played early in the year during the Victoria Film Festival, and it is returning November 17th at Cinecenta on the University of Victoria campus. Director Andrew Naysmith and Producer Arwen Hunter will be attendance to answer questions about recent developments since this film was completed in 2013.

4 out of 5 Stars