Listen now on SWFL Fresh Press with Eric Raddatz.

Award-winning photographer and Academy Award-winning director Louie Psihoyos released his first documentary film, “The Cove,” in 2009. After screening at the Naples International Film Festival, “The Cove” not only won the Academy Award but also earned over 100 other film and environmental awards globally. It became the first documentary in history to sweep all the film guilds, and the activism around the film contributed to a significant over 93% drop in dolphin and porpoise deaths. In 2015, Psihoyos released his second documentary, “Racing Extinction,” which received Oscar and Emmy nominations and reached 36 million people in 220 countries and territories on the first day it aired on the Discovery Channel. The film led to the enactment of laws banning the trade of some of the world’s most endangered species. In 2018, Psihoyos directed “The Game Changers,” a documentary about super athletes achieving increased strength, endurance, and virility through a plant-based diet. The film, executive produced by James and Suzi Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Kyle and Tracy Vogt, Jackie Chan, and Lewis Hamilton, triggered a 350% global increase in searches for “plant-based diet” during its first month on Netflix. Alongside colleagues Travis Threlkel and Chris LeJeune of Obscura Digital, Psihoyos produced projection events of endangered species and climate change for The United Nations, The Empire State Building, and The Vatican, accumulating over 5.5 billion media views. His current film, “You Are What You Eat,” is currently trending at 3rd on Netflix.