Photo: Kristopher Roller
Create Hope
Inspire Change
Mission: To discover and illuminate Original Pursuits – the inspiring ideas of people who believe they can change the world through film.
Everywhere around the globe we see alarming trends. The climate, the environment, the economy,
and national politics are increasingly out of balance, with potential consequences we have yet to face.
And yet hope persists, as new generations of young scientists, engineers, social entrepreneurs, and media producers launch exciting ventures that will have constructive impacts from the community level to the world at large. At Original Pursuit, we want to find these Changemakers and their ventures and bring them to the attention of a wide and supportive audience through the medium of short,
powerful films. We know you are out there…please come join us!
Watch a Preview of
Call of the Orcas
By Jessica Plumb: Our Latest Filmmaker who is leveraging video to bring awareness to our world's pressing issues.
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Call of the Orcas
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COTO synopsis on Film Freeway:
Call of the Orcas explores the urgent effort to recover endangered Southern Resident Killer Whales of the Pacific Northwest, through the eyes of one of their human champions, researcher Ken Balcomb, who passed away in late 2022.
Balcomb’s determined survey work over nearly fifty years helped people see these orcas as individuals, in family groups, and led to a subspecies listing under the US Endangered Species Act. The story encompasses many perspectives on the unique orca culture of the Pacific Northwest, from an indigenous experience of orcas as family, to the lifelong commitment of Canadian researcher Dr. John Ford, who dedicated his career to documenting orca calls.
Southern Resident orcas are distinctive for many reasons, among them their long, close proximity to human populations. They continue to visit the Seattle waterfront, following their preferred prey, Chinook salmon. Despite an aggressive capture program five decades ago, mutual curiosity between the people of Puget Sound and Southern Resident Killer Whales continues, raising an urgent question for human residents of the Salish Sea. Can we learn to live in a way that sustains the orcas among us? This story profiles a researcher running out of time, while 75 remaining whales depend our action for survival.