Stephen Shearman speaks at ‘Reef Builders' Panel Discussion, presented by Sheba | Variety at SXSW - video Dailymotion

Watch Stephen Shearman speaks at ‘Reef Builders' Panel Discussion, presented by Sheba | Variety at SXSW - Variety on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00I was kind of daunted by this idea of telling a story about coral as it doesn't go anywhere,

00:06can't talk to you, hasn't got eyes, you know, and Dave told me that this is a community-led

00:12project. The whole thing is giving this out to the community. So that was, you know, music to my ears

00:19and I've got an amazing story. When we went to Bontasur for the first time and we kind of led

00:24down these dusty paths on the island, this tiny island, there's 400 souls on this island and

00:29completely tight-knit little community, narrow alleys and everything else and we're led into

00:33this dark room and I met Sam Aila for the first time and I instantly connected because

00:39it's when you look someone in the face, you can read their story, you know, and I read his story

00:45but it was only when we were at his house and we're talking and I'm listening to his life story

00:50and he just kind of casually said, and his house is at the end of the island, and he just said,

00:55yeah, there were two more houses down there, you know, they've gone and the impact of Coral Reef then

01:01just smacked me between the eyes, you know, it's like, wow, okay, so Coral Reefs to these people,

01:07losing Coral Reefs to these people is everything and that's what kind of just opened the film up

01:14and for me drove the film, yeah.