Photo: ‘Playing with Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story'/Disney+ Coming just off the tail of this year’s Shark Week (hosted by Discovery Channel), Disney+ has released a documentary following these great beasts. Titled ‘Playing with Sharks,’ the film follows conservationist, diver, and photographer Valerie Taylor as she surmises her life and career. A fearless trailblazer in the male-dominated field, Taylor leads us through a renewed understanding of sharks in an hour and a half – one where they are regarded as friends, not foes. Related article: ‘In the Heights’ – Behind the Scenes and Full Commentary/Reactions from Cast & Crew Related article: The Hollywood Insider’s CEO Pritan Ambroase: “The Importance of Venice Film Festival as the Protector of Cinema” Friends, not Foes Like many shark-focused documentaries, ‘Playing with Sharks’ seeks to repair the harsh stigmas against sharks, perpetuated by films and media. For decades, sharks were seen as unwanted predators of the sea,...
- 8/2/2021
- by Lana Nguyen
- Hollywood Insider - Substance & Meaningful Entertainment
Six films are set to vie for this year’s Aacta Award for Best Documentary, with voting for the winner open from today until August 2.
For consideration are Christopher Nelius’ Girls Can’t Surf, the highest grossing feature doc of the year so far; Sally Aitken’s Sundance-selected Playing With Sharks, and Molly Reynold’s My Name Is Gulpilil, a portrait of one of Australia’s leading actors, David Gulpilil.
They will compete against Matthew Walker’s I’m Wanita, about to premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival following a HotDocs bow; Tosca Looby’s examination of the attacks that faced Julia Gillard in office, Strong Female Lead; and Jane Castle’s portrait of her mother, filmmaker Lilias Fraser, When The Camera Stopped Rolling.
‘Strong Female Lead’.
As If has reported, Aacta has adjusted its voting framework this year, with rounds per category staggered throughout the year.
The Best Documentary...
For consideration are Christopher Nelius’ Girls Can’t Surf, the highest grossing feature doc of the year so far; Sally Aitken’s Sundance-selected Playing With Sharks, and Molly Reynold’s My Name Is Gulpilil, a portrait of one of Australia’s leading actors, David Gulpilil.
They will compete against Matthew Walker’s I’m Wanita, about to premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival following a HotDocs bow; Tosca Looby’s examination of the attacks that faced Julia Gillard in office, Strong Female Lead; and Jane Castle’s portrait of her mother, filmmaker Lilias Fraser, When The Camera Stopped Rolling.
‘Strong Female Lead’.
As If has reported, Aacta has adjusted its voting framework this year, with rounds per category staggered throughout the year.
The Best Documentary...
- 7/26/2021
- by Jackie Keast
- IF.com.au
This review of "Playing With Sharks" was published following the film's premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
"Playing With Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story" tells a tale right out of mythology, with the hunter becoming the protector, helping to save the animals whom she had previously helped to portray as monsters. In capturing the work of legendary filmmaker and conservationist Valerie Taylor, this Sundance premiere from director Sally Aitken also offers a front-row look at an extraordinary life.
It helps, of course, that Valerie makes the ideal documentary subject -- candid and outgoing in interviews, discussing a life that's not only exciting and full of purpose, but also one that took place, to a large extent, in front of cameras. Aitken and editor Adrian Rostirolla make wonderful use of a plethora of archival materials, from 1950s newsreels demonstrating teenage Valerie's prowess at spearfishing to footage shot by Valerie and her late husband Ron Taylor,...
"Playing With Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story" tells a tale right out of mythology, with the hunter becoming the protector, helping to save the animals whom she had previously helped to portray as monsters. In capturing the work of legendary filmmaker and conservationist Valerie Taylor, this Sundance premiere from director Sally Aitken also offers a front-row look at an extraordinary life.
It helps, of course, that Valerie makes the ideal documentary subject -- candid and outgoing in interviews, discussing a life that's not only exciting and full of purpose, but also one that took place, to a large extent, in front of cameras. Aitken and editor Adrian Rostirolla make wonderful use of a plethora of archival materials, from 1950s newsreels demonstrating teenage Valerie's prowess at spearfishing to footage shot by Valerie and her late husband Ron Taylor,...
- 7/23/2021
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Arab Blues (Manele Labidi)
The original French-language title of Arab Bles is Un divan à Tunis, and true to the echo of Chantal Akerman’s psychotherapeutic meet-cute A Couch in New York, Manele Labidi’s debut feature is the frothy tale of an analyst coming to terms with her own sense of dislocation, while tending to the many seriocomic needs of her flock. In this case, the psychoanalyst is Selma (Golshifteh Farahani), who leaves Paris and returns to her family’s apartment building in Tunisia, where a neighbor looks at her poster of Sigmund Freud and asks her: Who is he, your father? – Mark A. (full review)
Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)
Cousins (Ainsley Gardiner and Briar Grace Smith)
They...
Arab Blues (Manele Labidi)
The original French-language title of Arab Bles is Un divan à Tunis, and true to the echo of Chantal Akerman’s psychotherapeutic meet-cute A Couch in New York, Manele Labidi’s debut feature is the frothy tale of an analyst coming to terms with her own sense of dislocation, while tending to the many seriocomic needs of her flock. In this case, the psychoanalyst is Selma (Golshifteh Farahani), who leaves Paris and returns to her family’s apartment building in Tunisia, where a neighbor looks at her poster of Sigmund Freud and asks her: Who is he, your father? – Mark A. (full review)
Where to Stream: Mubi (free for 30 days)
Cousins (Ainsley Gardiner and Briar Grace Smith)
They...
- 7/23/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
By Glenn Dunks
Sally Aitken’s Playing with Sharks and Eli Roth’s Fin are two very different documentaries but share common ground. Not just in that they are both about sharks, but because they each want to use their platforms to advocate for the preservation of the ocean’s perfect predators. Neither film reaches the heights of other better, similarly themed films, but it’s something of a sad indictment that their very existence is important as the environmental crises happening in our oceans appear so far from being solved.
Aitken’s film chooses to focus its lens on Valerie Taylor, a famed Australian diver whose role in some prominent Hollywood productions led to being a conservationist. Fin on the other hand is a most unexpected non-fiction diversion for Roth; a film more akin to The Cove than the gory horror features that he is better known for.
Sally Aitken’s Playing with Sharks and Eli Roth’s Fin are two very different documentaries but share common ground. Not just in that they are both about sharks, but because they each want to use their platforms to advocate for the preservation of the ocean’s perfect predators. Neither film reaches the heights of other better, similarly themed films, but it’s something of a sad indictment that their very existence is important as the environmental crises happening in our oceans appear so far from being solved.
Aitken’s film chooses to focus its lens on Valerie Taylor, a famed Australian diver whose role in some prominent Hollywood productions led to being a conservationist. Fin on the other hand is a most unexpected non-fiction diversion for Roth; a film more akin to The Cove than the gory horror features that he is better known for.
- 7/22/2021
- by Glenn Dunks
- FilmExperience
Valerie Taylor, the legendary Australian marine conservationist who has spent most of her life fighting for the preservation of sharks, is no shrinking violet. When producer Bettina Dalton and director Sally Atkin approached the 85-year-old to be the subject of their National Geographic/Disney + documentary “Playing with Sharks,” she agreed to participate while telling them “I want it done my way.’ ” And, as she revealed in a recent Zoom conversation about the documentary premiering July 23 on the streaming service, “they looked at me and said ‘huh? That’s what you think.’ I’ve been in the industry for well, before they were born, I think. I had my own ideas. Nobody listened to me. They persevered!
Still, Taylor said smiling, “when I see the film, I understand why it’s such a success I’m delighted with the story it tells.” So have critics. “Playing with Sharks” which was in...
Still, Taylor said smiling, “when I see the film, I understand why it’s such a success I’m delighted with the story it tells.” So have critics. “Playing with Sharks” which was in...
- 7/21/2021
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Shark icon and conservationist Valerie Taylor has been swimming with sharks and filming them underwater since the 70s. The shark expert and Taylor's husband shot the underwater footage of real sharks for Steven Spielberg's Jaws. Taylor is the subject behind the National Geographic documentary, 'Playing with Sharks' as one of the few women who documented shark behavior for decades. Taylor talks to CineMovie about her underwater exploits with sharks and introducing Chris Hemsworth to a Great White for his Nat Geo special, "Shark Beach."...
- 7/8/2021
- by luperhaas@cinemovie.tv (Lupe R Haas)
- CineMovie
"Nature made the perfect animal." Disney+ has released the official US trailer for the acclaimed shark doc titled Playing with Sharks, which first premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. It's debuting streaming on Disney+ just a week after Discovey's Shark Week event this summer. The full title is officially Playing with Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story, as this profiles a remarkable Australian woman named Valerie Taylor, who started out hunting sharks, but then grew to love them, and is now an outspoken shark activist and conservationist, fighting to save them. From twice Emmy-nominated director Sally Aitken, the Playing with Sharks film captures the life of a woman ahead of her time—a fearless diver, cinematographer, and a pioneering conservationist whose work would forever change our understanding of the ocean's most magnificent apex predators. It was one of my favorite docs of Sundance 2021 in my Best of the...
- 7/1/2021
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
“There is a creature alive today which has survived millions of years of evolution…without change, without passion, without logic. It lives to kill. A mindless eating machine, it will attack and devour anything. Try to imagine meeting the Devil…with Jaws.” – Jaws trailer
Ron and Valerie Taylor are the only names that come to mind when you think of the real shark footage in Steven Spielberg’s Summer Blockbuster Jaws. The film was released on an unsuspecting public June 1975 and the horrifying images of the film instilled fear into beachgoers that summer along with the phrase “See it before you go swimming.” The Taylors were synonymous with real shark footage and worked on other ocean themed movies such as Orca, Jaws 2, and The Blue Lagoon.
Valerie’s late husband Ron’s cinematography and exquisite compositions have certainly stood the test of time. From the birth of scuba with...
Ron and Valerie Taylor are the only names that come to mind when you think of the real shark footage in Steven Spielberg’s Summer Blockbuster Jaws. The film was released on an unsuspecting public June 1975 and the horrifying images of the film instilled fear into beachgoers that summer along with the phrase “See it before you go swimming.” The Taylors were synonymous with real shark footage and worked on other ocean themed movies such as Orca, Jaws 2, and The Blue Lagoon.
Valerie’s late husband Ron’s cinematography and exquisite compositions have certainly stood the test of time. From the birth of scuba with...
- 6/29/2021
- by Melissa Thompson
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Sharks are terrifying. They represent something primordial, these creatures unchanged since the dinosaurs roamed. Their eyes are black pits, and their rows of teeth create a gnashing nightmare maw. Shark researcher and underwater filmmaking pioneer Valerie Taylor doesn’t see them that way. She’s the center of the new Disney+ and National Geographic documentary, Playing With Sharks, […]
The post ‘Playing With Sharks’ Trailer: The World’s Greatest Shark Photographer Gets Her Own Disney+ Documentary appeared first on /Film.
The post ‘Playing With Sharks’ Trailer: The World’s Greatest Shark Photographer Gets Her Own Disney+ Documentary appeared first on /Film.
- 6/29/2021
- by Danielle Ryan
- Slash Film
"Playing with Sharks", directed by Sally Aitken for National Geographic Documentary Films, is part of Nat Geo's "SharkFest 2021", streaming July 23, 2021 on Disney+:
"...Valerie Taylor's life's work since the 1950's has become the basis for much of what we know about sharks today. Through remarkable underwater archival footage, along with interviews with Valerie herself, 'Playing with Sharks' follows this daring ocean explorer's trajectory from champion spearfisher to passionate shark protector.
"From the birth of 'cage diving' to 'Jaws' hysteria to the dawn of cageless shark diving, Valerie became a trailblazing advocate for the ocean's most maligned and misunderstood creatures..."
Click the images to enlarge...
"...Valerie Taylor's life's work since the 1950's has become the basis for much of what we know about sharks today. Through remarkable underwater archival footage, along with interviews with Valerie herself, 'Playing with Sharks' follows this daring ocean explorer's trajectory from champion spearfisher to passionate shark protector.
"From the birth of 'cage diving' to 'Jaws' hysteria to the dawn of cageless shark diving, Valerie became a trailblazing advocate for the ocean's most maligned and misunderstood creatures..."
Click the images to enlarge...
- 6/29/2021
- by Unknown
- SneakPeek
"When I think of 'Jaws' I think about courage and stupidity. And I think of both of those things existing underwater." That's a quote from Steven Spielberg on his time directing the 1975 horror classic, which turns 40 this Saturday. Proving that sometimes greatness can spring from unimaginable misery, the film was famously a nightmare to shoot, with numerous production problems including the frequent malfunctioning of "Bruce," the collective name given to the film's trio of animatronic sharks. But don't take my word for it. Below are ten hellish behind-the-scenes straight from the mouths of those involved that will make you wonder how they managed to finish the film at all. 1. This is what happens when you hire a stuntman with no diving experience When husband-and-wife shark experts Ron and Valerie Taylor were commissioned to get footage of actual Great Whites attacking a cage (for the famous Richard Dreyfuss underwater sequence), the...
- 6/19/2015
- by Chris Eggertsen
- Hitfix
Ron Taylor, an Australian marine conservationist who, along with his wife Valerie, helped film some of the real-life shark footage used in "Jaws," has passed away at the age of 78 after a battle with cancer, a family friend tells the AP.
The sequence near the end of "Jaws" where Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus) goes into the shark cage is actually filled with footage shot by Ron and Valerie Taylor off the coast of Australia. The two put a jockey into a miniature shark cage, so as to make the real-life great whites look as large as the fictional 25-foot shark in the movie.
One great white became entangled in the top of the shark cage and began thrashing about violently, which was then used in the movie for when the shark attacks Hooper and the cage, and Hooper escapes to safety.
Ron and Valerie went on to shoot several documentaries,...
The sequence near the end of "Jaws" where Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus) goes into the shark cage is actually filled with footage shot by Ron and Valerie Taylor off the coast of Australia. The two put a jockey into a miniature shark cage, so as to make the real-life great whites look as large as the fictional 25-foot shark in the movie.
One great white became entangled in the top of the shark cage and began thrashing about violently, which was then used in the movie for when the shark attacks Hooper and the cage, and Hooper escapes to safety.
Ron and Valerie went on to shoot several documentaries,...
- 9/10/2012
- by editorial@zap2it.com
- Pop2it
Greig Fraser has taken the Milli Award for Australian Cinematographer of the Year for his work on 2009′s Bright Star, at last Saturday’s Acs National Awards in Adelaide.
Other winners include Dion Beebe for the Us feature Nine, Stephen Windon for The Pacific, and Calvin Gardiner for the dramatised documentary I Spry.
Ron Taylor, Valerie Taylor and Malcolm Richards were inducted into the Acs Hall of Fame. The ceremony was dedicated to the memory of cinematographer and owner of Lemac Film and Digital John Bowring Acs, who passed away last month.
This is the full list of winners:
Student Cinematography
Lonely Chris Miles Gold Award
Experimental & Specialised
Qr National Nathan Tomlinson Award of Distinction
Stop Motion Cinematography
Pascall ‘Pineapple Lumps’ JoAnne Bouzianis-Sellcik Golden Tripod
TV Station Breaks / Promos
Masr elnahrda ‘Egypt Today’ Gamal Elboushi Award of Distinction
Music Clips
Thirsty Merc ‘All My Life’ David Knight Acs Award of...
Other winners include Dion Beebe for the Us feature Nine, Stephen Windon for The Pacific, and Calvin Gardiner for the dramatised documentary I Spry.
Ron Taylor, Valerie Taylor and Malcolm Richards were inducted into the Acs Hall of Fame. The ceremony was dedicated to the memory of cinematographer and owner of Lemac Film and Digital John Bowring Acs, who passed away last month.
This is the full list of winners:
Student Cinematography
Lonely Chris Miles Gold Award
Experimental & Specialised
Qr National Nathan Tomlinson Award of Distinction
Stop Motion Cinematography
Pascall ‘Pineapple Lumps’ JoAnne Bouzianis-Sellcik Golden Tripod
TV Station Breaks / Promos
Masr elnahrda ‘Egypt Today’ Gamal Elboushi Award of Distinction
Music Clips
Thirsty Merc ‘All My Life’ David Knight Acs Award of...
- 5/2/2011
- by Miguel Gonzalez
- Encore Magazine
Steven Spielberg's Jaws is one of my all time favorite films. I wasn't even born yet when it came out, but it is a piece of cinematic history. This is an incredible film that still continues to blow me away every time I watch it.
Jaws was released on June 20th 1975 and it gave birth to the modern day blockbuster film. It was the first film to open in hundreds of theaters across the country at the same time, and it ended up become the most successful movie of all time until Star Wars knocked it out two years later.
Had Jaws not happened I don't think movies would have been shaped the way they have over the years. Jaws has influenced almost every aspect of filmmaking and story telling. Without Jaws, we may have never seen movies like Star Wars come to the big screen. To put things into perspective for you,...
- 6/21/2010
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
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