Official US Trailer for ‘Playing with Sharks’ Doc Profiling Valerie Taylor
Official US Trailer for ‘Playing with Sharks’ Doc Profiling Valerie Taylor
by Alex Billington
July 1, 2021
Source: YouTube
“Nature made the perfect animal.” Discovery has released an official US trailer for the acclaimed shark doc titled Playing with Sharks, which first premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. It’s debuting streaming on Disney+ just a week after Discovey’s Shark Week event this summer. The full title is officially Playing with Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story, as this profiles a remarkable Australian woman named Valerie Taylor, who started out hunting sharks, but then grew to love them, and is now an outspoken shark activist and conservationist, fighting to save them. From twice Emmy-nominated director Sally Aitken, the Playing with Sharks film captures the life of a woman ahead of her time—a fearless diver, cinematographer, and a pioneering conservationist whose work would forever change our understanding of the ocean’s most magnificent apex predators. It was one of my favorite docs of Sundance 2021 in my Best of the Fest – “the definitive documentary about humanity’s connection with sharks.” I highly recommend this.
Here’s the official US trailer (+ poster) for Sally Aitken’s doc Playing with Sharks, direct from YouTube:
A true pioneer in both underwater filmmaking and shark research, Valerie Taylor is a living legend and icon in the underwater world whose life’s work has become the basis for much of what we know about sharks today. Through remarkable underwater archival footage, along with interviews with Valerie herself, Playing with Sharks, from twice Emmy-nominated director Sally Aitken, follows this daring ocean explorer’s trajectory from champion spearfisher to passionate shark protector. From the birth of cage diving to “Jaws” hysteria, to the dawn of cageless shark diving, Valerie became a trailblazing advocate for the ocean’s most maligned and misunderstood creatures. Playing with Sharks is directed by Australian producer / filmmaker Sally Aitken, director of the doc Getting Frank Gehry previously, and lots of TV work including “The Pacific: In the Wake of Captain Cook with Sam Neill”. This first premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and also played at the Nantucket Film Festival. Disney / Discovery will debut Aitken’s doc Playing with Sharks streaming on Disney+ starting July 23rd, 2021 this summer.
