Plastic waste inflicts massive damage on the world’s oceans and represents untold dangers to sea life. The Birthplace project  – a collaborative effort between musicians, filmmakers and a local freediving expert – is designed to draw attention to the pollution that threatens marine environments.

Picture the scene.

The screen is filled with an image of a pristine ocean of foam-flecked blue waves. Then, as the camera submerges, the viewer is taken down towards the seabed, to the idyllic world deep below the surface.

A man, wearing street clothes, and unencumbered by breathing apparatus, strides across the soft sands of the ocean floor….

This is Michael Board, a British diving expert and former Royal Marine Commando. He is an international champion who holds records in freediving and free immersion, and is a trainer in SCUBA and Technical Diving Instruction. He now lives on Gili Trawangan, where he offers training courses at Freedive Gili  – a freediving and yoga training centre.

He was the obvious choice for the role of the diver.

Now he launches himself upwards into the clear blue waters, totally at home among the waving and beautifully coloured sea plants and the ocean’s creatures – schools of fish, a fleshy pink and white squid, a giant ray, and a majestic sea turtle.

The sound track accompanying the imagery is Birthplace – a beautiful and haunting melody by Novo Amor. It inspired the makers of the video, who used its basic concept, and the track’s name, for their film.

The diver swims towards what appears at first to be a jellyfish. Then mood changes as we see it for what it really is – a plastic bag, incongruous in the magnificent natural surroundings.

The makers of Birthplace have chosen a highly symbolic and subtle way to convey a message. It’s about raising awareness, and exposing the problems associated with ocean pollution. Those who care enough to explore further, can discover disturbing facts about human neglect of the marine environment.

• Every minute 1.3 million plastic bags are used throughout the world
• Every year 8 million tonnes of plastic are dumped Into the world’s oceans
• By 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish

As we watch, vast amounts of plastic material, cans and discarded rubbish swirl into view. The diver finds it increasingly difficult to find his way through this ocean of waste. Now in a foetal position, he floats, still and lifeless.

The diver’s figure reminds viewers of the paradox. The oceans – from which all life emerged, and on which human life depends – are being destroyed by human activity.  

The film’s message becomes clearer, as the massive figure of a whale dominates the screen.

The whale is a universal symbol of the need to protect the ocean environment. For the film, the designers’ amazing creation was modelled on the humpback whale and is made entirely of rubbish. The project involved local children, who collected the rubbish needed for its construction.

The whale opens its huge jaws, and ‘swallows’ the human figure that drifts towards it.

The imagery is multi-layered. It manages to strike a chord in viewers from very different backgrounds, and poses challenging questions.

Like the biblical character, Job – also swallowed by a whale – does the diver remain there, representing, and repenting, human wrongdoing?

One human being meets his fate inside a creature made from plastic waste. Is this a strange justice? So many ocean creatures have died from swallowing plastic waste dumped by human beings.

The whale’s belly is womb-like. Do we sense that humanity has literally ‘trashed’ the environment that gave it life?

In the words of the song, ‘It’s still our nest’ – our birthplace.

Birthplace was written and directed by Sil van der Woerd and Jorik Dozy. The superb cinematography was by Nihal Friedel, with the music of Ali Lacey (Novo Amor). Michael Board captures perfectly the ‘everyman’ figure, and embodies the gentle but powerful message of the film.

It’s a message that has been well received and acknowledged. The film has been widely viewed on social media and was recently awarded Video of the Year at the AIM Independent Music Awards, in London.

See the video at: https://vimeo.com/279665122

and the story behind its making at: https://vimeo.com/276623191

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