 Co-founder of Greenpeace and founder of Sea Shepherd and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, Captain Paul Watson has spent 40 years fighting to end the destruction of the ocean's wildlife and its habitat. Filmed over two years in Costa Rica, Tonga, and the US, Watson is a feature documentary about the life of eco-warrior Captain Paul Watson. Paul Watson has created his own foundation, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, as Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and the board of Sea Shepherd Global removed him. He has also left the executive office of the Australian branch of SSCS. In July 2024, Watson was detained in Nuuk by the Danish police, citing an Interpol red notice from Japan. He was expected to stay in pre-trial detention until 2nd October 2024; Watson and the Captain Paul Watson Foundation have filed an appeal with the Supreme Court to have the decision set aside. On October 2, the Nuuk court ordered Paul Watson to remain in custody until October 23, pending the decision on his extradition by the Danish courts. Director: Lesley Chilcott Producers: Louise Runge, Lesley Chilcott, Wolfgang Knöpfler Cinematographer: Logan Schneider Editor: Greg Finton Executive producers: Jeff Skoll, Diane Weyermann, Elise Pearlstein, Walter Köhler, Dinah Czezik-Müller Composer: Christophe Beck  Lesley Chillcott Director https://www.lesleychilcott.com Award-winning filmmaker Lesley Chilcott refuses to be boxed in, continuously exploring a variety of topics that engage audiences by tackling myths and illuminating the truth. Best known for her work on films tackling social and environmental issues such as WATSON, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, CODEGIRL and WAITING FOR SUPERMAN, she's recently been taking fresh, unfiltered looks at a variety of new subjects that have fascinated our culture for decades including directing and producing HELTER SKELTER: AN AMERICAN MYTH and producing AMITYVILLE: AN ORIGIN STORY, both of which are currently streaming on MGM+. Her latest project, ARNOLD, is a 3-part docuseries examining the life and work of Arnold Schwarzenegger that debuts on Netflix in June 2023. She's currently directing WOLVES, which examines the plight of wolves in the west and examines their status as one of the most misunderstood animals on the planet and exec producing HOT STUFF, a look at the enduring influence of Disco. She is also exec producing MASTERMIND, the 4-part Hulu docuseries about Dr. Ann Burgess, the architect of the FBI's infamous "mindhunter" method. A member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), Directors Guild of America, and The Producers Guild of America, Chilcott lives in Los Angeles when she's not traveling the world filming.
‘Watson’ Review: Environmentalism on the High Seas - originally published in the NY Times https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/movies/watson-review Lesley Chilcott’s documentary on Paul Watson includes snippets of his “eco-vigilante” group’s widely publicized skirmishes. Paul Watson is a different sort of environmentalist than is typical in documentaries. In “Watson,” the director Lesley Chilcott’s profile of the maritime activist, he makes the case for direct confrontation on the high seas. If that meant ramming a boat he believed was engaged in poaching, then by god, that boat was getting rammed. A founding member of Greenpeace who left the organization on contentious terms, Watson started the conservation group Sea Shepherd in 1977. A professed “eco-vigilante” group that makes a mission of protecting aquatic wildlife around the globe, Sea Shepherd seeks out illegal fishing and stops ships that engage in it before they can act. The group has had widely publicized skirmishes with, among others, Japanese whaling vessels and with fishermen in Guatemalan waters whom Sea Shepherd has contended were slicing the fins off sharks. (“They claimed that I rammed them and tried to kill them,” Watson says of the latter. “I mean, if my decision was to ram them and try to kill them, they would be dead.”) We see snippets of those confrontations in the movie, because Watson, crediting the media theorist Marshall McLuhan as an inspiration, has long had cameras aboard Sea Shepherd’s vessels. (He has also been a presence on Animal Planet, the channel that is distributing the film.) This choice has left Chilcott with a wealth of white-knuckle footage that helps to keep the documentary visually dynamic. Watson’s vigilantism hasn’t gone unchecked: At the end, the film notes that he is still subject to an Interpol “red notice” — essentially an international “wanted” poster — requested by the Japanese authorities. But even for those skeptical of Watson’s tactics, he is engaging when describing his environmental concerns, such as how short-term sales create an incentive for fish sellers to push certain species to extinction. The movie can be frustratingly deferential toward Watson, but it is never less than urgent. |
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