AllMovie

The massive decline in the seal population in the Mediterranean ocean is the springboard for a series of questions about the future of both animals and humanity in this documentary from filmmaker Miloslav Novak. As the once plentiful Mediterranean Monk Seal has become an endangered species, Novak explores how humans have interacted with creatures of the sea in the 20th Century, with special emphasis on two real-life anecdotes. A seal from a zoo in Prague was caught in flood and somehow managed to make his way into Germany, while an Italian photographer who caught a Sardinian seal threw the animal into a Roman fountain, which earned the shutterbug a hefty fine and inspired Federico Fellini to put Anita Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain for La Dolce Vita. While Novak ponders the undercurrents of these stories, he also examines the work of filmmaker Emmanuele Coppola and documents how people have taken over the beaches where seals once dominated the seaside. Mir s Tuleni (aka Peace With Seals) was an official selection at the 2008 Finale Pilzen Film Festival.