A Conversation With Louie Psihoyos‏

You know how it is: you start a film blog, email the first review to the director of the film, and he emails you straight back. Result!

My email:

15 July 2009 - 21:08

Hi Louie,

Saw The Cove in Auckland on Saturday 11th July and was completely blown away - a tremendous acheivement. Well done.

Apologies you had such a small audience on the Saturday - I was kind of surprised at that myself - but I hear that around 600 attended the second showing so I hope Auckland wasn't such a disappointment for you.

Well, I'll be pushing the film on as many of my friends and acquaintances as possible so I hope you manage to secure a general release over here.

Congratulations again on making a film of such power. I'm sure you're sick of reading reviews, but here's my two cents: http://popcornlogic.blogspot.com/

Take care,

Johnny

And his reply:

15 July 2009 - 21:55

Nice review Johnny, many thanks for the support. I was disappointed with the Saturday attendance but I am always aware that even an audience of one is an opportunity to....just had an earthquake here in Wellington... I'm not use to this...pretty cool.. hotel room is rocking....wooowwww.. as I was saying....every screening is an opportunity to shake someone up.

At the Saturday screening was Katy from the NZ television station and several reviewers, including yourself. You never know where or when change will occur, but if you put a good film out there my hope is it will build an audience and then multiply.

At the second screening was the head of Greenpeace New Zealand, we had drinks for an hour or so afterwards and enjoyed each others company with some other NGO's and then she split - I had no idea who she was until somebody said, "Do you know who that was?" I heard from friends of friends she was moved and my hope she will tell her friends as you told yours...so the screening last night was a great success because this is a word of mouth film and now we have exponentially more mouths to tell the story of their experience.

Frederick Briand, the IWC delegate from Monaco, who in the film says, "Don't say you don't know about it - you know about it!" wrote me last week after he had seen The Cove at a special screening at the lWC and paid the film one of the best compliments I've heard, he told me, "The Cove is worth a thousand speeches," and this from a man who has written some of the finest speeches I've heard at the IWC. I'm going to have to start trusting those words next week when we go into theatrical release in America and I can no longer be at every screening...

Onward,

Louie














(Hopefully you won't mind me reprinting your words Louie - I'm desperate for content and it's not every day I get an email from a film director in the middle of an earthquake registering 6.6 on the richter scale!)