Etienne de France wrote and produced his 59-minute pseudo-documentary film
Tales of a Sea Cow in 2012. This film portrays a fictional 2006 re-discovery by marine biologists of a living population of the
Steller's sea cow, an extinct
sirenian species, off the coast of
Greenland in the
Arctic Ocean and
Atlantic Ocean via analysis of sound recordings of their calls. The Steller's Sea Cow is known historically only from several islands in the
Bering Sea, and prehistorically as a fossil at various sites on both the North American and Asian sides of the
Pacific Ocean; no known Steller's Sea Cow has ever lived in the
North Atlantic Ocean (although species of the related
manatee do live in southern portions). This film was inspired by real scientific studies and techniques such as the article entitled
Information Entropy of Humpback Whales Songs, published by scientists Ryuji Suzuki, John R. Buck and Peter Tyack in 2005. One of these authors, the scientist John R. Buck (of the
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth) is the scientific advisor for this film. and has been screened in
Canada The cast of this film is largely
Icelandic, and includes as lead actors Friðgeir Einarsson and Aðalbjörg Þóra Árnadóttir. French Art critic
Annick Buread found this film to be a " tongue in cheek and joyous but unsettling fable". This film was also nominated for the 2013 "Limited Budget Award" category of the Wildtalk Africa 2013 Roscar Awards, a biennial
South African
wildlife film award. ==Icelandtrain and Icelandtraincity projects==