By STEVE MARTINDALE
SS FILM FESTIVAL SOCIETY
The Salt Spring Film Festival invites you to sail away with a globe-trotting, mountain- climbing Swiss family of eight who live full-time on their sailboat, featured in Livia Vonaesch’s award-winning new documentary Home is the Ocean, which launches the annual “Best of the Fests” film series on Wednesday, October 1, at ArtSpring.
Dario and Sabine Schwörer and their six home-schooled, multilingual children — all born in different time zones — have travelled over 100,000 nautical miles and visited over 100 countries. Conducting research on climate change and microplastics in some of the world’s most remote waters, the Schwörers are founders of the Swiss-based TOPTOTOP Global Climate Expedition, whose mission is to inspire young people to save the planet. Sharing 20 square metres of living space, each family member plays an important role in this well-coordinated team, with the intrepid and seemingly fearless kids confidently handling themselves on the high seas, until a destructive storm forces the family to reconsider their unconventional life choices.
Filmed around the world over seven years and featuring gorgeous cinematography, this strikingly beautiful film — co-presented by the Salt Spring Nature Academy and the Salt Spring Island Sailing Club — was named Best Documentary at Italy’s Riviera International Film Festival.
The Best of the Fests series continues on Oct. 29 with Have You Heard Judi Singh?, about an enormously talented but largely forgotten Canadian jazz singer; The Art of Adventure on Nov. 12, featuring Robert Bateman and Bristol Foster travelling around the world in the 1950s; and the National Geographic documentary Love+War, about courageous photojournalist Lynsey Addario, on Dec. 3.
All Best of the Fests screenings are at ArtSpring on Wednesdays at 7:30 pm. Tickets available through artspring.ca; by phone (250-537-2102) or at the ArtSpring box office in person (Tuesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.); or at the door an hour before showtime.