Seychelles and Indonesia honoured at major sea film festival |19 September 2013

Seychelles and Indonesia were specially honoured by the Water-Sea-Oceans Film Festival last weekend in Hluboka nad Vltavou in the Czech Republic.

In fact, the Festival, who was celebrating its 10th anniversary, was dedicated to the promotion of these two Indian Ocean archipelagos on account of their rich marine lives and their spectacular and colourful environments.

The whole exercise amounted to a special promotion of the two nations that in recent years have been making regular headlines for their tourism achievements. Seychelles and Indonesia are the up-and-coming diving destinations for people living in landlocked Czech Republic.

The ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia to the Czech Republic, Emeria W. A. Siregar,  and other Indonesian tourism officials represented their country at the festival’s official opening ceremony.

Seychelles was represented by its founding President James R. Mancham and the Seychelles Tourism Ambassador in the Czech Republic, Gwilym Sicobo.
Also present was Seychellois lawyer, Maître Daniel Belle, who is in Prague to discuss a major tourism project for Seychelles.

The Indonesian dimension was focused on Indonesia’s varied diving potentials generally, and on Bali in particular, where this year’s Miss World contest is being simultaneously hosted.

An exclusive screening of a short documentary entitled ‘The Making of Aldabra’ depicted the enormous challenges of filming a 3D film on the remote Aldabra archipelago.

Mr Mancham was chosen to present the main award of the event, ‘The Grand Prix of the Water-Sea-Ocean Festival’, which went to the film ‘Planet Ocean’ directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand and Michael Pitiot. The award was presented personally to the film´s cinematographer, the world-renowned Australian filmmaker, artist, educator and conservationist David Hannan. Mr Hannan has just completed an important project on Cook Island funded by the Australian government and other international donors.

When he presented the award, Mr Mancham commented that the time has come for the world to know more about the Water-Sea-Ocean Film Festival in Hluboka.

He said that all support must be provided to the organisers of the Festival so that this annual event could assume the true international stature that it deserves and make it as well known as the Cannes Festival, Berlin Festival and Venice Festival.

In this connection, Mr Mancham was widely applauded when he suggested to the Mayor of Hluboka, Tomas Jirsa, and to Senator Vladimir Dryml that they should ask the government of the Czech Republic to consider issuing a special Stamp Cover to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Water-Sea-Ocean Festival which has clearly shown that the Czech people have developed a great love for the sea, the oceans and maritime life although many of them live far away from the sea.

More information and photos of the Water-Sea-Ocean Festival can be seen by visiting www.vodamoreoceany.cz/en.