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One step forward, two back?“Festival Mondial de l’Image Sous-Marine” —it’s a name that smells like summer, that tastes like Turkish honey, and it is the name of the photo and film festival that has, worldwide, the highest reputation in the diving scene. The 34rd edition of this festival gathered again photographers and underwater filmmakers from all over the world in the south of France. Antibes is a nice city at the seaside with all the charm that thousands of tourists love year after year during the high season. But in the end of October, during festival time, this tourist centre of Cote d’Azur is one of the loveliest places one could visit at the Mediterranean Sea in autumn.

Daniel Mercier, the 76-year-old founder of the festi-val, is not only chairman and mentor of this traditional event, he is also the soul of this festival of creativity. He knows most of the exhibitioners and participants per-sonally. Nobody really has an idea how many hands he shakes during festival time. And there are not more than ten steps he could take before he stops for the next chat. Mercier is still living his dream of supporting diving activities world-wide and giving divers of all nations the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the seas together. His dream grew out of his own experience. Mercier is a highly decorated 3-star dive instructor with more than 7000 dives to his name. His friendly and cooperative character is one of the main brands of the festival. But within the last few years, something has changed. Everybody is looking for more professional-ism, more comfort and optimal conditions. And while everybody is looking for this, something has been lost—the cosy atmosphere of the past.

World Festival of Underwater Images

Text by Harald Apelt Photos by Harald Apelt, Steve Jones & Yann St Yves

Good times: X-RAY MAG

writer Kurt Amsler (right inset), famous

Swiss underwater photographer and

keen jazz drummer, lives on the French

Cote d’Azur

Wrong place: The celebration of the festival at

the orca basin in “Marineland”

(far right photo)

YANN ST. YVES

YANN ST. YVES

YANN ST. YVES

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“All signs point to success. This 34th festival will remain in eve-rone’s memories—even more festive than ever.” This message could be read on the festival’s webpage. And indeed, every-thing was a little bigger than in former years. There was a lot of parking space for participants and visitors cars and enough space for the presentation of the photographs and the films. The festival took place this year in Marineland, a theme park a few kilometres outside of Antibes. In the centre of this park is a big basin where four orcas are located. A huge oval tribune for about 4000 spectators bor-ders this basin. Several times a day the orcas present their show guided by their trainers, which lead some unusual stunts togeth-er with the animals.

Quite a lot of the festival par-ticipants and visitors asked them-selves if this location is the right place for a divers festival. “This choice of location was not the best one,” said one of the con-test-winners. Last year, the festival took place in an improved tent at the old harbour of Port Vauban in Antibes. In prior years, the festival was traditionally located in the heart of the old part of Antibes at Juan les Pins in the congress centre. The location was close to the seaside, surrounded by French life and all the reasons which make so many visitors, exhibitors and participants move to Antibes—the fantastic Mediterranean atmosphere, the bars, the restaurants and the short ways. Besides the festival, it was a

meeting place for friends, a place of interchange of ideas and opinions and a party place for the diving world. To be fair, the quality of the presen-tation and the organisation of this, the biggest photography and film event in the diving world, was nearly perfect as it was in prior years. But for those of us who have known and visited this festival since the early years, we left Antibes this time feeling that something was lost—the atmosphere. Certainly, this is not just a cast of nostalgia, of some old folks look-ing back fondly on the good old days. Maybe the right solution for the 35th fes-tival in 2008 could be: two steps forward and one step back. The results of the 2007 competition can be downloaded as a PDF from www.underwater-festival.com. ■

Antibesreport

ABOVE: The entry tent of the festival. TOP CENTER: Andrea Ramalho-Kiefner (Brasil) and Ralf Kiefner (Germany) got lucky with the public prize in category “Best Film”

STEVE JONESHARALD APELT

YANN ST. YVES

A present: “Thank you” from Daniel Mercier to Executive

Director Cynthia L. Carrion for sponsoring the festival with the

Philippines Department of Tourism

It’s a fish-eat-fish world. Steven Kovac’s photo entry in this year’s competition at the festival

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HILARIOUS GIFTS FORDIVERS

Not a prize-winner, but a great shot. Festival participant, Felipe Barrio, from Spain took this picture at Djibouti. The whalesharks—here, in a swarm of sardines—are to be seen in Golfe of Tadjora from October to January

BARRIO FELIPE

THIS PAGE: A selection of photo entries from this year’s competition at the World Festival of Underwater Pictures

CHARLES HOOD

JEFF YONOVER NOAM KORTLER

ALESSIO VIORA