Documentary film-maker, adventurer, jewellery designer and public speaker Céline Cousteau speaks to Shirin Mehta of her recent India visit as an ambassador for The TreadRight Foundation. She tells us about exploring and filming the deep Amazon and its indigenous tribes and being on the research vessel Calypso with her legendary explorer-oceanographer grandfather, Jacques Cousteau...
The telephone line connects us over time zones…. The voice at the other end is faint, but I am excited to hear what it has to say. I have already formed a deep admiration for the courageous lady who is probably just getting herself her morning cuppa — intrepid explorer, film-maker, saver of the environment. Céline Cousteau and her documentary film company CauseCentric Productions (CCP) provide “a megaphone” in her own words, to men and women who are doing incredible work to protect ecosystems, species and people. very often with hardly any, or no resources at all….
Telling stories with the specific intention of igniting action, Cousteau urges that everyone be ‘causecentric’ and lend a hand to those with a message to share. Having inherited Jacques Cousteau’s (French explorer-film-maker-scientist and her grandfather) spirit of adventure, she travels to melimoyu Bay in Chile capturing the narrative of this diverse ecosystem and the organisation protecting it, the melimoyu ecosystem research institute (meri). She visits with the non-profit mesoamerican reef (mar) Leadership Program which approaches conservation through ‘intelligent investment in people’. in India, she works with elephant conservationists and recognises the problems of survival for these animals. She traipses through fjords. She dives into secluded lagoons. She traverses giant rivers. and all this, sometimes, with her young son (now seven) in tow….
excerpts from a conversation with Verve….
Could you tell us about CauseCentric Productions (CCP)?
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