We do not just advise – we ask you to see Born to Be Free documentary!

On February 24, at 19.00, at Moscow’s October Cinema Center, the Russian premiere of this film will be held. On March 21, on Earth Day, the documentary will be released in cinemas in Russia, after which it will be watched by the audience of Channel4 Channel (United Kingdom), ARTE (Germany, France) and Netflix, covering 70 million viewers around the world (including Russia). 10% of the box office will be used in IFAW’s program for the conservation of marine mammals.

This is the first Russian film-investigation on one of the most secretive and corrupt business areas – the international trade of marine mammals for the entertainment industry.
In 2013, the media was stirred up by a story about 18 belukhas – white whales caught in the Sea of Okhotsk in the Russian Far East for sale in the Georgia Aquarium (USA). Through public efforts, USA imposed a ban on their import, which was the beginning of a long trial.
Having decided to find out what was behind the story and what relationship was between research and private dolphinariums business, the authors of the film – Director Gayane Petrosyan and free divers Tatyana Beley and Julia Petrik – learnt more about the wrong side of this industry. Interviews, meetings, investigation and unique snapshots revealed more secrets and shown on what system of lies and manipulation the show in dolphinariums were based. As a result, the audience will learn about these animals’ dramatic fate – from underwater shooting of these beautiful intelligent creatures in their natural habitat to the carefully concealed from the public eye catching and conveying baths, and exaggerations, where the animals’ mentality are broken accustoming to captivity, and the backstage of dolphinariums.

From the crew of Born to Be Free film: “Amazing story happened to us while we were making Born to Be Free film. We went to the White Sea in order to show the huge difference between life of white whales in the wild and their «existing» in dolphinariums. But in the very beginning we were told that white whales would not contact humans in the open sea. However animals somehow understood that we wished to protect them from dolphinariums. Finally they came close to us and worked with us like real team members. They swam and interacted with our film co-author and free diver Tatyana Beley, posing for her camera for hours. The unique experiment was successful in spite of extreme shooting conditions and bad visibility under water. It made a big impression not only on us, but on biologists as well – such a contact with white whales happened for the first time. Before that all the contacts had taken place in captivity only.

At the Moscow premiere, the film will be presented by its crew team: Gayane Petrosyan, the Director; Tatiana Beley, the author of this film idea; Julia Petrik, the co-author; Mike Lerner, Producer of the film; Cindy Milburn, the Director of strategic development and advocacy at IFAW, an expert of IFAW on ethics and legislative regulation of animal protection; and the organizers and the jury of VIII ECOCUP Green Documentary Festival.
Before the premiere of the film, a reception is scheduled by Mistral Alco, a partner of ECOCUP Green Documentary Festival.

To buy tickets, please, follow this link: https://kassa.karofilm.ru/…/pl…/session/0000000030_65042/key.
The address of October Cinema Center in Moscow: Novy Arbat, bld. 24.
ECOCUP web-site: http://www.ecocup.ru/movies/born_to_be_free/.

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