CAUGHT 2.0: Film Screening and Community Building Reception

As part of the 2022 Wildscreen Festival's official selection, this short documentary by environmental alliance Age of Union reveals the critical impacts of dangerous fishing methods and dolphin bycatch off the coast of France, while the French government does little to intervene. Through a raw, unfiltered look at boots-on-the-ground activism by the Sea Shepherd crew of the M/Y Age of Union, the film also pinpoints the potential catastrophic ripple effects of overfishing, jeopardizing sustainability for all life on earth in the foreseeable future. Watch the official trailer. 

The screening will be followed by a discussion with film contributors Dax Dasilva, Founder of Age of Union, and Will Allen, Cinematographer and Photographer. They will be joined by Trevor Swerdfager, Practitioner-in-Residence in the School of Environment, Resources, and Sustainability and Prateep Nayak, professor in the School of Enterprise, Enterprise and Development. The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Sarah Burch, professor in the School of Geography and Environmental Management and Executive Director of the Waterloo Climate Institute who will also be taking questions from the audience. Guests are invited to a reception following the screening. 

Seating is limited. Please RSVP before September 8. 

Dax Dasilva is a global tech leader and environmental activist who is well known as the creative mind behind Lightspeed Commerce Inc. and Age of Union. Dasilva founded Lightspeed in 2005 as a payments software which has evolved today into a one-stop commerce platform for retail, hospitality, and golf merchants in over 100 countries.
 
In 2019, Dasilva released his debut book, Age of Union, as a compelling guide for igniting today's changemaker. This would later inspire Dasilva’s non-profit environmental alliance Age of Union that supports and makes visible a global community of changemakers working on the ground to protect the planet's threatened species and ecosystems. This alliance launched in October 2021 with Dasilva’s initial pledge of $40 million towards conservation efforts that help solve critical environmental challenges around the world and inspire high-impact change by showing the positive impact that every individual can make. 

Will Allen has been a photographer and cinematographer since 2003. Primarily focused on aquatic life, he has worked on several adventure documentary films including Bouvetoya, The last place on Earth, traveling to the most remote uninhabited island on Earth with a small group of explorers to summit the island. He has worked on five IMAX films including Ultimate Wave Tahiti 3D and Rescue 3D with director Stephen Low. However, the films that have meant the most have been Revolution and Sharkwater: Extinction with his late friend Rob Stewart. They both shared the same passion for the planet, the ocean, and saving its inhabitants through conservation and education.  

Aside from working as a cinematographer, Will co-owns two restaurants in Montreal, Quebec where they try to exercise the buy-local mentality and serve only sustainable foods in a plastic-free environment. He hopes, through his efforts in film and photography, to share the beauty of the oceans to inspire future generations to make positive changes towards helping the environment.  

Dr. Sarah Burch is a Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Canada and holds a Canada Research Chair in Sustainability Governance and Innovation.

She is the Executive Director of the Waterloo Climate Institute, and a Lead Author of the United Nations’ Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. She is an expert in transformative responses to climate change at the community scale, the political and justice dimensions of energy transitions, and the unique contributions that small businesses can make to this solving these complex challenges.

Dr. Burch holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford. She was elected to the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars in 2017 and was named one of Canada’s Top 40 Under 40^TM in 2018. Her most recent book is entitled ‘Understanding Climate Change: Science, Policy and Practice,’ and she has taught the first Massive Open Online Course on climate change, which reached thousands over students in over 130 countries. 

Trevor Swerdfager is a Practitioner-in-Residence at the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment, School of Environment, Resources, and Sustainability. He graduated from the Faculty of Environment in 1985. Before rejoining the Faculty of Environment as a practitioner, he had a career in the federal Public Service spanning over 30 years. He held positions in Environment Canada offices in Sackville, New Brunswick, Edmonton and Vancouver before becoming Director General, Canadian Wildlife Service in Ottawa. He then spent 18 months on Executive Interchange with the Forest Products Association of Canada before moving to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as Director General, Aquaculture in 2007.

The next ten years saw Trevor moving in to roles as head of law enforcement and then a succession of Assistant Deputy Minister roles responsible for operational policy, fisheries management, marine protected areas, species at risk, aquaculture and environmental assessment before assuming the role of Assistant Deputy Minister, Science. The last 18 months of his Public Service career were spent as the Senior Vice-President Operations at Parks Canada where he was responsible for the operation of all Parks Canada National Parks and National Historic Sites. Trevor now teaches at the Faculty of Environment with a focus on courses in fish, forest and wildlife management, environmental policy and decision-making and oceans conservation and protection. He also assists the Dean and the Faculty leadership team in the areas of educational partnerships and government relations.

In addition to his work at the University of Waterloo, Trevor serves on the Board of Directors of Birds Canada, a national non-for-profit organization focused on conserving and protected birds across the country. 

Prateep Nayak is an Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Environment, School of Enterprise, Enterprise and Development (SEED), a member of the Water Institute, and Associate Dean, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Justice. His academic background is in political science, environmental studies, and international development. He does transdisciplinary work with an active interest in combining social and ecological perspectives.

Prateep’s research focuses on understanding complex human-environment connections (or disconnections) with particular attention to change, its drivers, their influence, and possible ways to deal with them. His main areas of expertise and interest include commons, governance, social-ecological system resilience, wellbeing, environmental justice, and political ecology. Currently, he teaches international development and environment. In the past, Prateep worked as a development professional in India on issues around community-based governance of land, water, and forests, focusing specifically on the interface of research, implementation, and public policy. Prateep is a past Trudeau Scholar, a Harvard Giorgio Ruffolo Fellow in Sustainability Science, a recipient of Canada's Governor General Academic Gold Medal, and SSHRC Banting Fellow.