In 2019, Simon Schneider and Sarah Sharkey Pearce set out to make a film about the last living Southern Resident Killer Whale in captivity, an orca named Lolita (or “Toki”), who had been captured in Puget Sound in 1970. Lolita spent more than half a century in the Miami Seaquarium’s “Whale Bowl’, a tank that measured 80 x 35 foot, and only 6 metres deep. As filming progressed, they joined a coalition of environmentalists, billionaire philanthopists, disenchanted ex trainers, and Lummi elders, all fighting to have the aging and ailing orca returned to her ocean home. It proves a long and painful odyssey, but also provides remarkable insights into how humans and animals feel about each other.
Apr 2: Q&A with director Simon Schneider & Tah-Mahs Ellie Kinely
Sarah Sharkey Pearce & Simon Schneider
Squil-le-he-le Raynell Morris, Tah-Mahs Ellie Kinely
Canada
2024
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Screenwriter
Sarah Sharkey Pearce, Simon Schneider
Cinematography
Simon Schneider
Editor
Tony Kent
Original Music
Josh Zubot, Jesse Zubot
Also Playing
Love
This warm, thoughtful piece offers shrewd comic observations on modern dating as it trains a quizzical eye on the trysts of a female doctor, Marianne (Andrea Bræin Hovig), and her colleague, a gay male nurse, Tor (Tayo Cittadella Jacobsen).
Sex
Two chimney sweeps living in heterosexual marriages find their views on sexuality and gender challenged by a series of unexpected events. In a set of sharply scripted conversations, both men confront heretofore unexplored aspects of their identity.
3 Faces
Iranian filmmaker Panahi and actress Behnaz Jafari, both playing themselves, receive a video in which a distraught teenaged girl, whose acting dreams have been quashed appears to kill herself. Panahi and Jafari decide to investigate...
Dreams
The third installment in the Sex/Dreams/Love trilogy is another rich, absorbing tale. 17-year-old Johanne writes a confessional about her flirtation with a (female) teacher. But the writing is too good to stay private...
Transit
Trust the director of Phoenix and Barbara to re-imagine a WWII romantic intrigue into something unsettlingly contemporary. With occupying forces closing in, a German refugee (Franz Rogowski) assumes a dead writer's identity and flees to Marseille.