{"id":77064,"date":"2026-02-02T08:38:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T04:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/?p=77064"},"modified":"2026-02-02T08:38:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T04:38:02","slug":"abraham-joffe-at-xposure-2026-i-was-shocked-that-a-symbol-of-the-climate-crisis-is-still-being-traded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/abraham-joffe-at-xposure-2026-i-was-shocked-that-a-symbol-of-the-climate-crisis-is-still-being-traded\/","title":{"rendered":"Abraham Joffe At Xposure 2026: \u2018I Was Shocked That A Symbol Of The Climate Crisis Is Still Being Traded\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer Abraham Joffe said he was \u201cshocked\u201d to discover that polar bears \u2013 widely regarded as symbols of the climate crisis \u2013 continue to be traded internationally, as his hard-hitting investigative documentary Trade Secret<\/i> made its Middle East<\/a> debut at the landmark 10th edition of the Xposure International Photography Festival (2026) on Saturday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Directed by Joffe, the documentary examines how polar bears continue to move through a global trade system that operates both within and alongside existing regulations, challenging long-held assumptions about wildlife protection, conservation policy, and commerce.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following the screening at the festival\u2019s Hadara stage, South African investigative journalist Adam Cruise, who led the investigation across multiple countries, described the film as an effort to document \u201cwhat happens when protection exists on paper, but not always in practice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The film follows Cruise over six years as he traces the movement of polar bear skins from Canada to international markets. Canada is the only one of the five polar bear range states that permits international commercial trade. According to Cruise, approximately 700 polar bears are killed each year for trade from an estimated global population of 20,000. \u201cWhen you factor in illegal trade, the real number could be much higher,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a thousand, maybe 1,500 bears a year. That\u2019s a percentage of the population being removed every single year.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Running just under two hours, Trade Secret<\/i> also documents how legal trade has operated in parallel with unauthorised routes, including shipments passing through Norway\u2019s former free-trade zone in Svalbard. The film reveals that, following the investigation, Norwegian authorities moved to close that loophole. \u201cThis movie stopped that,\u201d Cruise said.<\/span><\/p>\n

A key section of the documentary focuses on efforts led by Cruise and the investigative team to uplist polar bears to Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) \u2013 an international agreement between 185 parties designed to ensure that trade in wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival. Such an uplisting would ban international commercial trade while allowing Indigenous subsistence hunting. Norway commissioned a first-of-its-kind independent report into Canada\u2019s polar bear trade and pushed for the uplisting ahead of the June 17, 2022 deadline at the CITES Convention in Panama.<\/span><\/p>\n

The film also examines the role of major conservation organisations, which Cruise said were compelled to publicly re-examine their positions on trade and trophy hunting. \u201cOn the one hand, they say one thing. Behind closed doors, something else happens,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Previously premiered in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe, Trade Secret<\/i>\u2019s Middle Eastern screening reinforces Xposure 2026\u2019s position as a platform for global investigative storytelling and urgent conversations that extend beyond visual practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Joffe will join Cruise for a longer public conversation at the festival on February 2, 2026.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Award-winning filmmaker and cinematographer Abraham Joffe said he was \u201cshocked\u201d to discover that polar bears \u2013 widely regarded as symbols of the climate crisis \u2013 continue to be traded internationally, as his hard-hitting investigative documentary Trade Secret made its Middle East debut at the landmark 10th edition of the Xposure International Photography Festival (2026) on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77065,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77064"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77066,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77064\/revisions\/77066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}