Film Curator Brings Trashy Ocean Issue Home With Tonight's "Kaisei" Screening

It's not often that a film series curator gets to present a motion picture she was intimately involved with the making of, but Keiko Beatie will do so tonight when the Laguna Beach Film Society presents Kaisei: Journey Into The Plastic Vortex.

You've probably read or heard about that island of discarded plastic items floating in the Pacific Ocean known as the North Pacific Gyre. Director Pete Crowley's documentary shows that the patch discovered four years ago is one of seven that has formed in all major bodies of the world's oceans. The film's mission is to show how consumers' feast of plastic and unconscious lifestyles pollute all parts of the world.

Crowley is affiliated with the San Francisco-based Ocean Voyages Institute, and Kaisei: Journey Into The Plastic Vortex has the backing of the Surfrider Foundation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Jean Michelle Cousteau and world champion pro surfer Shaun Tomson, among others.

Also involved in the making were South County residents Jim Kempton, the former editor and publisher of Surfer magazine, and Beatie, who curates the monthly Laguna Beach Film Society program, which is under the wing of Laguna Art Museum.

Beatie, who was shocked to learn about the gyre of trash infecting the ocean, is listed in the credits as associate producer. She has worked with other film productions and festivals worldwide, including the Newport Beach Film Festival.

Crowley and other members of his team attend the Kaisei: Journey Into The Plastic Vortex screening at 7 tonight in the Forum Theater on the Festival of Arts grounds in Laguna Beach. For a $15 ticket (which is free if you join the film society), you'll learn more about what is happening to the world's oceans. You can also visit projectkaisei.org.

For more information about Laguna Beach Film Society, go here.