Hurricane on the Bayou

The latest IMAX film began in 2005 as a standard documentary on the vanishing wetlands of the Mississippi Delta. Then, director Greg MacGillivray stumbled onto a dramatic illustration of his theme when Hurricane Katrina struck while his film crew was working in New Orleans. The film focuses first on the efforts of Cajun bluesman Tab Benoit and 14-year-old zydeco fiddle prodigy Amanda Shaw to draw attention to the deterioration of the bayou ecosystem, then on their plight as the storm hits—Shaw forced to evacuate with her family; Benoit safely away on the road yet wracked with worry for his home. MacGillivray combines amazing footage of Katrina’s aftermath and split-screen news coverage with a sparing use of digital animation to show the hurricane in progress, where no camera crew would dare to go.