fbpx
  • About Us
  • Advertising
  • Legal Notices
Lagniappe Mobile
  • News
    • Cover Story
    • Latest
    • Serial Stories
    • Bay Briefs
    • Community News
    • Open Documents
    • e-Edition
  • Baldwin
  • Commentary
    • Damn the Torpedoes
    • Hidden Agenda
    • Beltway Beat
    • The Real Deal
    • Weather Things
    • The Gadfly
    • Letters to the Editor
  • Cuisine
    • The Dish
    • Word of Mouth
    • Beer and Loathing
    • Cuisine Directory
  • Arts
    • Artifice
    • Art Gallery
    • The Reel World
    • Calendar
  • Music
    • Music Feature
    • Music Briefs
    • Music Listings
    • Submissions
  • Sports
    • The Score
    • The Starting Line-Up
    • From Behind The Mic
    • Upon Further Review
  • Style
    • Media Frenzy
    • Mobile Magnified
    • Horoscopes
    • Master Gardeners
    • Style Feature
  • Lagniappe HD
  • Lagnia-POD

Select Page

Documentary on acclaimed filmmaker from Mobile showing locally

Posted by Jason Johnson | Jan 9, 2020 | Latest, News | 0 |

Mobile native Mike deGruy’s life and career as an award-winning filmmaker and oceanic videographer are chronicled beautifully in a new documentary that will be screening in his hometown this weekend.

“Diving Deep: The Life and Times of Mike deGruy” is a documentary about deGruy that his wife and filmmaking partner, Mimi, spent years putting following his untimely death.

deGruy, whose groundbreaking work on the acclaimed BBC and Discovery Channel series “The Blue Planet: Seas of Life” won both Emmy and BAFTA awards, died in a helicopter crash near the coast of Australia in 2012.

He was filming a series with Academy Award-winning director James Cameron on the Mariana Trench at the time of the crash. Cameron is one of many people who worked with deGruy and his wife that share their memories in the documentary — a film that follows deGruy’s journey from a boy exploring the waters of Mobile Bay to an acclaimed filmmaker and a fierce advocate for Earth’s oceans. 

The latter half of the film focuses on deGruy’s work to highlight the devastation along the Gulf Coast following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Without a contract or grant to fund his initial work, deGruy moved back to Mobile with his family, grabbed a camera and started filming on his own.

Following her husband’s death, Mimi deGruy went into the editing room and began putting together pieces of dramatic and previously unreleased footage Mike and his other colleagues had captured. It also includes personal interviews with family, friends and heavyweights in the film industry like Cameron and Brittish documentarian Sir David Attenborough.

“Diving Deep” is about deGruy’s life, but it also focuses on continuing the mission he dedicated the final years of life to, which was bringing attention to the destruction that off-shore oil production has caused in the Gulf of Mexico in the past and the danger it still poses for the future.

A particularly powerful scene near the end of the movie captures a visibly frustrated deGruy standing on the water’s edge in Bayou La Batre. There, he laments the disparity between the money big oil companies spend exploiting the ocean’s resources and what little scientists have to study it.

“I ask [scientists], ‘how much money do you need,’ and I hear figures like $100,000. That’s a lot of money, but not compared to the insane amounts of money that corporations spend pulling oil out of the environment,” deGruy said. “They’re spending billions exploiting and destroying the very habitats that we don’t even understand yet because the scientists don’t have $100,000.”

“Diving Deep,” which picked up multiple awards on the film festival circuit in 2019, is now getting ready to start its theatrical run this weekend, which includes showings at the Regal Stadium 18 at McGowan Park. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 11; 1 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 12; and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 15.

A trailer for the film can be seen below or on its offical website divingdeepmovie.com.


<

This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access. During the month of December, give (or get) a one year subscription with TWO months FREE.

Share:

Rate:

PreviousBaldwin County warns of severe weekend weather potential
NextHank Aaron Stadium to host youth baseball championship in 2020

About The Author

Jason Johnson

Jason Johnson

Jason Johnson originally hails from Elba, Alabama, and graduated summa cum laude from Troy University in 2011. He’s been a reporter for Lagniappe since 2014, where he covers an array of topics with a focus on county government, local courts and education. Previously, Jason worked for the Southeast Sun (Enterprise, Alabama), the Alexander City Outlook and 94.7 WTBF FM (Troy, Alabama). He’s also been recognized by the Alabama Press Association with designations in general excellence, photography and education reporting. In his spare time, Jason is a guitarist and drummer who enjoys the benefit of regularly playing with musicians better than himself.

Related Posts

Council delays vote on stadium request

Council delays vote on stadium request

January 14, 2015

County bids farewell to influential engineer

County bids farewell to influential engineer

September 28, 2016

MPD gains access to 2,000 cameras citywide

MPD gains access to 2,000 cameras citywide

July 23, 2015

Updated: Man accused of raping child multiple times over 5 years

Updated: Man accused of raping child multiple times over 5 years

January 2, 2015

Recommended Stories

New eateries opening and in the works

By Andy MacDonald

Nashville-style songwriters’ round launches in Mobile

By Stephen Centanni

When nothing is true anymore .…

By Ashley Trice

Strange predictions from a stranger visitor

By Rob Holbert

MSO ‘Fanfare’ ushers in new year

By Kevin Lee



  • Advertising
  • About Us
  • Contacts
  • Jobs
  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

Search This Site

Browse the Archives

© Lagniappe Mobile 2021

[yop_poll id=”-1″]