He has dedicated the last 20+ years to collecting evidence of the Thylacine’s continued existence, through his ‘Thylacine Awareness Group of Australia’ group. Only recently classified as extinct by the IUCN, the canine-like, marsupial Thylacine continues to attract interest from all over the world – a remarkable example of convergent evolution. Neil’s mission in searching for proof of this animal’s existence has led him on a fascinating journey, and we learn as much about Neil and his strength in adversity and passion for conservation, as we do about his steadfast belief in this animal being saved.  Eyes Like Diamonds explores themes of purpose, resilience, grief, hope, and finding meaning in life.

My first thought after watching Eyes Like Diamonds, that it would be so easy to dismiss Neil Waters as a looney.  I was also  reminded of a line from a 2002 war comedy directed by John Henderson Two Men Went to War “God bless the lunatics… You know, without them, this war could be really quite serious.” However, skeptical about the work of people like Neil Waters’ work you might be, they still could be proven right, stranger things have happened. And yes, it is uncomfortable sitting on the fence. For the record, Eyes Like Diamonds is the second movie that I’ve reviewed in the past few months, the first one being Pelverata. Director Jonathon Buckland delivered some beautiful shots throughout his film. One of my biggest complaints about Eyes Like Diamonds was that some of the photographic evidence didn’t seem to transfer that well to the screen nor did the footage shot with a thermal camera. Especially if you didn’t know what you were looking at. The sound recordings compared to other animals was interesting and personally I found the scene explaining the paw print collection to be fascinating.