For Staten Island native Jeff Orlowski, chasing ice is more of a passion than a film project.
At The Sundance Film Festival, 27 year-old Orlowski's debut feature documentary, “Chasing Ice,” had its world premiere at the festival in Park City, Utah.
The documentary explores the work of author-photographer James Balog’s Extreme Ice Survey (EIS) project. The filme that premiered on January 23, won an award for best cinematography.
The documentary takes the viewer on a journey with Balog, once a skeptic about climate change, who discovers evidence of global warming. “Chasing Ice” features time-lapse videos of vanishing glaciers, while delivering fragile hope to our carbon-powered planet. Orlowski grew up in Eltingville, Staten Island and joined the EIS team in 2007, filming them across the Arctic as EIS installed solar-powered camers in Greenland, Iceland, and Alaska.
“It was a full-time job just keeping up with James. But after a year of documenting him and his camera network,” says Orlowski, “I knew we had the footage to tell an important and powerful story that needed to be shared.”
He recruited a team of world class talent to fulfill his vision: Paula DuPré Pesmen, producer of 2010’s Academy Award-winning “The Cove,” Oscar-nominated producer Jerry Aronson (“The Life and Times of Allen Ginsberg”), writer Mark Monroe (“The Last Play at Shea”), editor Davis Coombe (“The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner”), and music by J. Ralph (the Oscar-winning “Man on Wire”). Sound design and mixing took place at George Lucas’s legendary Skywalker Sound.
Balog has made presentations at the White House, U.S. Congress and Apple headquarters. He also spoke on behalf of the U.S. State Department and NASA at the 2009 U.N. climate conference in Copen-hagen. His work has been exhibited widely and published in titles such as National Geographic, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, among many others.
“I’m honored to be the subject of Jeff’s first feature film, and thrilled that our years of hard work on EIS are documented,” Balog said. “(We) can now reach a world stage through Sundance, where viewers can see for themselves the reality of our rapidly changing planet.”
For more information about Jeff Orlowski’s film, check out ChasingIce.com.
Comments