Narragansett, RI — October 18, 2004 –When Rhode Island School of Design student filmmaker Nissa Kauppila created a documentary about the fishing industry of Point Judith, she discovered that the fishing community of the “Ocean State” is as foreign to many state residents as a distant country.

The film that Kauppila created, “The Point: A Film about the Fishing Industry in Point Judith, RI,” will be presented as part of a URI Graduate School of Oceanography lecture series sponsored by URI Friends of Oceanography. The film will be shown on Thursday, October 28, at 7 p.m. in the Coastal Institute Auditorium, URI Bay Campus, South Ferry Road, Narragansett. A discussion of the making of the film will follow.

What began as a school assignment grew into something “much bigger” as Kauppila spent hours talking with fishermen and others in the community, filming, and editing what has become a 25-minute film that explores how the Point Judith fishing community developed, the hardships fishermen face, and how the various elements of the community have come together for the first time at the Rhode Island Commercial Fisheries Center at the University of Rhode Island.

The fishing community proved to be “incredibly welcoming. Everyone wanted to participate. I got calls from people who wanted to help out, offering to take me out on their boats,” said Kauppila. “Once people learned I wasn’t doing this for an environmental company, they were really interested.”

The lecture is free and open to the public. For information call 874-6642.