A celebration of the release by Immersion Presents of the documentary film -

Pushing the Limits:
The Story of Greek Sponge Diving

This event features the screening of Pushing the Limits, a talk by the film’s executive producer Michael Kalafatas and a reception.

Pushing the Limits is entertainingly informative, well-produced and typically Greek in its portrayals of heroism and tragedy. It chronicles sponge diving from the business, scientific and personal perspectives, explaining how the economic imperative to more efficiently harvest sponges and the advent of new technology resulted in the shift from naked diving, or breath-hold diving, to machine diving that uses compressed air and diving suits. Associated with this advance in diving method was an increase in physical danger, due to decompression and overexposure. Indeed, the film points out that sponge diving was at one time the most dangerous profession in the Aegean and the United States.

The film weaves vintage black and white footage and still photographs of Greek island sponge diving with interviews of various people associated with the sponge-diving trade in Tarpon Springs, Florida today. Among those interviewed are sponge merchant and philanthropist Michael Cantonis and master diving-helmet maker Nicholas Toth. Mr. Toth, an artisan of obvious talent, is identified as the only person in the world now making hand-made helmets. The film also covers the devastation of the sponge diving industry in Florida by Red Tide toxic algae outbreaks in the 1940s. An evocative soundtrack of Greek island instrumentals artfully accompanies the film.

Pushing the Limits is based on Mr. Kalafatas’s book The Bellstone: The Greek Sponge Divers of the Aegean, published in 2003 by Brandeis University/University Press of New England. Mr. Kalafatas was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and educated at Brandeis University and Harvard University. He spent part of his childhood in the Tarpon Springs area of Florida with his family and considerable time in the Dodecanese Islands. For more than 20 years he served as Director of Admissions at Brandeis.

This event is hosted by the Sea Research Foundation, the Consulate General of Greece in Boston and the Maliotis Cultural Center. The Sea Research Foundation is the parent organization of Immersion Presents as well as the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration, all in Mystic Connecticut. The Institute for Exploration is headed by Robert Ballard, widely known for his discovery of the Titanic and underwater explorations of the Bismarck, Lusitania and Britannic.

This event is free and open to the public.