In the Whale: The Greatest Fish Story Ever Told (2024)
Director: David Abel Run Time: 81 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2023
Starring: Michael Packard
Country: United States
Language: English
About the film:
Audience Award winner at the 2023 New Hampshire Film Festival
An award-winning feature-length film about arguably the greatest fish story ever told, though this one is true. In the Whale (2024) chronicles the journey of a Cape Cod lobster diver who survived to tell the tale of being swallowed by a humpback whale, and the events that followed when the reclusive fisherman was thrust into the international limelight. Ultimately, it’s a love story — how a fisherman’s love for the sea and a father’s love for his family helped him survive in the whale and has helped him survive in another whale, his depression.
About the filmmaker:
David Abel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covers fisheries and environmental issues for The Boston Globe. Abel’s work has also won an Edward R. Murrow Award, the Ernie Pyle Award from the Scripps Howard Foundation, and the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Feature Reporting. Abel’s last film, Entangled (2020) won a Jackson Wild award, known as the Oscars of nature films. It also won Best Feature Film at the International Wildlife Film Festival, Best Conservation Film at the International Ocean Film Festival, and the John de Graaf Environmental Filmmaking Award at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival. In 2022, it was nominated for a national Emmy award.
Abel also co-directed and produced Sacred Cod (2016), a film about the collapse of the iconic cod fishery in New England, which was broadcast by the Discovery Channel in the spring of 2017. He also directed and produced two films about the Boston Marathon bombings, which were broadcast to national and international audiences, on BBC World News, Discovery Life, and Pivot. His other films include Lobster War (2018) and Gladesmen: The Last of the Sawgrass Cowboys (2018).
Lobster War (2018), which is being distributed by Gravitas Ventures, won the 2018 award for “Best New England Film” at the Mystic Film Festival and was runner-up for the Grand Prize for Best Feature Film at the 2018 International Maritime Film Festival. Gladesmen: The Last of the Sawgrass Cowboys (2018) won the 2018 Made in Miami Award at the Miami Film Festival. Abel, who began learning to make films as a Nieman fellow at Harvard University, is the director, producer, writer, and director of photography of In the Whale – The Greatest Fish Story Ever Told (2024).
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