As a videographer producing documentaries, Rhett Turner walks a fine line between advocacy and straight reporting.
For instance, his Red Sky Productions company is producing “Water Wars,” a documentary that traces the disputes over water rights of Alabama, Florida and Georgia to their shared river systems.
Meanwhile, he also is working for Gary Strieker, CNN’s former correspondent on global environmental issues who currently has his own video production company. Mr. Strieker’s upcoming video is titled “Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” and examines the Carter Center’s 20-year campaign to eradicate guinea worm disease.
During an interview with GlobalAtlanta in his office downtown, Mr. Turner said that “Water Wars” is to come out next year in the midst of gubernatorial campaigns in each of the quarreling states. Its purpose, he added, will be to raise the public’s awareness of the need for greater efforts to conserve water.
As for Mr. Strieker’s guinea worm project, he said he is involved primarily as a videographer and photographer reporting on the Carter Center’s initiative.
On Dec. 4, Mr. Turner is to receive from the World Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta an “International Hero’s Award” for bringing awareness to humanitarian causes through documentaries.
The chamber is hosting a two-day symposium titled “Meet the World in Atlanta” at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Buckhead. A gala at the Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead hotel is to conclude the inaugural event the evening of Dec. 4 during which a video showing some of Mr. Turner’s work will be viewed.
Andrew Young, former United Nations ambassador, U.S. congressman and mayor of Atlanta, is to be the keynote speaker at the gala and is to receive a “Lifetime Achievement Award” for his efforts to raise the profile of international trade and humanitarian development in Georgia and around the world.
As the son of Ted Turner, founder of CNN and former vice chairman of AOL Time Warner Inc., Rhett Turner was exposed to documentary film making at an early age.
A fond memory of his early teenage years is traveling along the Amazon River with Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the marine explorer and environmentalist, and watching the crew of the Calypso, the converted minesweeper from which the Cousteau team dove and filmed while conducting oceanographic research.
Rhett Turner also worked for CNN for a period in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a sound technician and editor in Jordan during the Gulf War and at the network’s Tokyo bureau.
“I think we are all creatures of what our parents expose us to,” he said tracing his original interest in environmental causes to the noticeable reduction in the number of ducks landing on Turner property in South Carolina. The ducks disappearance, he said, prompted him to research the causes of their reduced numbers through organizations such as Ducks Unlimited Inc.
Working on projects with former President Carter such as the “Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” appeals to his sense of history. And he spoke admiringly of Mr. Carter’s energy and commitment to a wide variety of humanitarian causes.
Mr. Turner is to participate as a panelist along with 20 other business and government officials, who are to discuss trade, cultural and humanitarian initiatives at the World Chamber’s symposium.
Solange Warner, a consultant and founder and president of the chamber, said that the symposium is to encourage cooperation among business and political leaders on behalf of economic and humanitarian goals.
The panelists are to include U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro, senior adviser for economic initiatives at the U.S. State Department; Ambassador Reda Mansour, dean of the Consular Corps of Georgia and consul general of Israel;
Ambassador Adalnio Senna Ganem, consul general of Brazil; Lutz Gorgens, consul general of Germany; Salvador DeLara, consul general of Mexico; Angela Turner, honorary consul general of Italy; John Parkerson, honorary consul of Hungary; Christopher Smith, honorary consul of Denmark; Bruce Allen, honorary consul of Liechtenstein;
Michael Bryan, vice president and senior economist Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta; Philippe Yvergniaux, president of Invest France Agency North America; Tom Strauss, southern network director, U.S. Commerce Department; Dan Moss Jr., senior vice president, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC;
Timothy J. Jeffrey, investment associate, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC; Charles Green, president of the Sunrise Bank of Atlanta; Craig Lesser, former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Economic Development and chairman of the World Chamber of Commerce and Jim Munson, Munson International.
Cost of registration for both the symposium and gala is $179 for chamber members and $199 for non-members. To attend the gala only, the cost is $120 for chamber members and $130 for non-members.
For more information, call Ms. Warner at (678) 938-4605 or send an email to solangewarner@worldchamberc.org To register, go to www.worldchamerc.org
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