Underwater photographers, film directors and producers, archaeologists, scientists and students gathered together and made very interesting presentations and of course every night we had our own small underwater forum at hotel lobby!

As I did last year I had prepared a photo presentation of my portfolio which was shown during festival to public. Comments were very positive so when I received the third award for my participation to festival contest, in Wide Angle category, I was very pleased.

On Friday as I waited to present my photographs at Tourism School hall, I had the opportunity to watch the complete session of Shark Films. Excellent movies from creative directors really impressed me. The film that grabbed me at once was the one called  “Gimme a hug” directed from Geert Droppers for the “Protect The Sharks Foundation”. Each year about 100 millions of sharks are killed mostly for their fins, because of the demand for sharks fins used for the… prestigious€ shark fin soup… Worldwide many shark species are threatened with extinction!

2009 is the year of the shark   so all of us that love sea can help stop or at least reduce the consumption of shark products. Lets help protect the sharks because they need our support and our voice. Watch the film trailer at http://www.protect-the-sharks.org/pts/about-sharks/gimme-a-hug/ and get ready to be charmed by these wonderful animals.