— Photo courtesy of dabel@bu.edu

The Somerville Theatre will be screening the award-winning new film, IN THE WHALE. This cinematic masterpiece, directed and shot by Pulitzer prize-winning Boston Globe reporter David Abel, tells the story of the last-remaining commercial lobster diver on Cape Cod, who two years ago was swallowed by a humpback whale and lived to tell the tale.

The film, which has been selling out theaters throughout New England, will be screening at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 18, at the Somerville Theatre. Abel will do a Q&A afterward. Tickets are available here.

The film tells a much deeper story about what happened to the reclusive fisherman, Michael Packard, after his encounter with the whale and after the international spotlight on him dimmed. 

You can watch the sizzle and see more about the film at www.inthewhalefilm.com. The film also won Best New England Film at the Mystic Film Festival. 

Pulitzer prize-winning Boston Globe reporter David Abel. — Photo courtesy of marga@twinseasmedia.com

About the film:

In the shark-filled waters off Cape Cod, Michael Packard has long tempted fate. 

For several months a year, Packard and his longtime mate, Josiah Mayo, cast off nearly every morning around dawn and navigate through the half-light to their diving grounds off Provincetown, the idiosyncratic, isolated community where they grew up at the tip of the Cape. Packard buckles on his scuba tank and plunges into the cold waters to hunt on the seafloor. 

As the region’s last-remaining commercial lobster diver, the aging father has had his share of harrowing experiences, which include close encounters with great whites, nearly drowning, and having to pull up the body of a fellow diver. He even survived a plane crash in the jungles of Costa Rica, where he ran a charter fishing business. But what happened to him on a routine dive during a clear June morning was something he never imagined possible, and many around the world refused to believe. 

In an experience of biblical proportions, Packard was engulfed by a humpback whale, caught in the watery cavity of its massive mouth. After some 30 seconds of a pitch-black captivity, in which he expected to die, he was spit out, fins first, to the surface, where Mayo and another fisherman rescued him. 

The publicity was similarly dizzying for the reclusive fisherman, whose survival story spread around the world in news dispatches. But what came after the limelight dimmed was even more significant for Packard. 

The 81-minute film premiered in the fall of 2023 at the New Hampshire Film Festival, where it won the Audience Choice Award. It also won Best New England Film at the Mystic Film Festival. See more about the film on FilmFreeway here.