Ever mindful of its unique marine heritage, the Seychelles Islands makes SUBIOS, the underwater Film and Image Festival, a priority event every year to highlight the innate beauty and diversity of its marine environment.

This year Seychelles celebrated its twentieth edition of SUBIOS, which was marked under the theme ‘Diving the Granitic Isles of Gondwana’ centering on the spectacular underwater scenery of the islands’ granite formations.

Held from 2 to 3 October 2009, the festival brought several visitors to the islands for the purpose of both diving and joining in the marine-oriented festivities.

The first prize winners of each category, excluding the public voting for the best image shot in Seychelles, was awarded a return ticket to Seychelles to participate in the following year’s SUBIOS. The list of winners for this year appears below and they each received a SUBIOS trophy.

SUBIOS 2009 was officially launched on the evening of October 2 by Vice President Joseph Belmont, who is also the Minister of Tourism, at the Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay Hotel

In his opening speech, Vice President Belmont highlighted the important role that SUBIOS has played and continues to be part of in terms of sensitizing people to both the global and local issues of the marine environment.

“I very much hope that SUBIOS will continue to grow in stature and play a significant role in raising our collective awareness of the environment in which we live and upon which we so heavily depend,” he said.

Mr Belmont praised SUBIOS for its prominent and sustained effort in promoting marine and coastal ecosystems conservation.

The opening ceremony was followed by a seafood buffet, as well as the main activity of the festival, which is the underwater image and video contest, whereby the winners of 2008 received their prizes.  There was also the public voting of this year’s contestants of the underwater image and video contest.

The winners of the 2008 underwater image and video contest were Elisabeth Fideria, who won the best image shot in Seychelles, and Gino Rosier, who took both the public choice and jury’s video awards

Other festivities for that night included a fashion show by the ‘Mangouya’ Studio where the models paraded in clothing featuring the SUBIOS theme along with live entertainment.

On the second day of SUBIOS, the festivities convened at the Beau Vallon beach where the SUBIOS village was set up alongside a special ‘Bazaar Labrin’ that kept the festival bustling with fun throughout the whole day.

Various organizations also came to support the event by mounting information stalls such as the one set up by the Seychelles National Parks Authority, which showcased the importance of marine-conservation and eco-systems, as well as providing awareness on the various aspects and activities of the organizations.

Before this year’s festival officially came to an end, there was the award presentation for the 2009 winner of underwater image and video contest.

Notably, the most appealing moment of the closing ceremony was the revealing of the 2010 SUBIOS poster and theme, which is ‘Seychelles: Seas of Thousand Species’, after which there was a screening of Planet Earth and live entertainment for the rest of the evening.

SUBIOS is organized for everyone to enjoy and not just for photographers or divers.  It is aimed at all of us wishing to experience the importance of our marine eco-systems and encourages us all to participate.  We should all gear up for SUBISO 2010 as we have only one year till its next appearance on the local scene.