There are huge, untapped reserves of oil and gas beneath the world’s oceans, but this new frontier comes with incredible risk—financial, environmental and social. The interactive documentary Offshore explores the evolving struggle and its huge stakes for the planet’s future.

Filmmaker Brenda Longfellow will discuss the process of developing this work and the challenges of creating new cinematic forms in a free public event on the UWindsor campus Monday, September 29.

Longfellow is an associate professor in the film department at York University and director of its graduate programs in cinema and media studies. Her documentaries have been screened and broadcast internationally, winning such accolades as:

• the Audience Award for Best Experimental Film for Dead Ducks at the Santa Cruz Film Festival (2011);
• a Bronze Remi Award for Weather Report at the Houston Film Festival (2008); and
• Best Cultural Documentary for Tina in Mexico at the Havana International Film Festival (2002).

Offshore takes place within the virtual world of a 3D imagined oil rig, offering a vision of what happens when need and greed push this industry past its level of competence. View it online.

The School of Creative Arts presents Longfellow at 7 p.m. September 29 in the Recital Hall, room 139, Music Building.