The documentary feature film Resident Orca will premiere in Canada as the closing night presentation of the Planet in Focus International Film Festival on October 20, 2024, in Toronto.
Celebrating its 25th anniversary, Planet in Focus is an environmental media arts festival that shows artistic films that explore and question our world, using cinema to foster public awareness and engagement on various environmental issues.
Resident Orca will also premiere at two other prestigious festivals: the Santa Fe International Film Festival and the Red Nation International Film Festival, held annually during American Indian Heritage Month, with the filmmakers in attendance all three screenings.
Resident Orca which premiered at Miami Film Festival tells the compelling story of a captive whale and the fight for her freedom. After decades of failed efforts to return her home, an unlikely alliance forms among Indigenous matriarchs, a philanthropist, killer whale experts, and the new owner of the aquarium, all dedicated to freeing Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut (Lolita/Tokitae) from the Miami Seaquarium and bringing her back to the Salish Sea.
Featured in the documentary are Charles Vinick, Executive Director of The Whale Sanctuary Project and founding member of “Friends of Lolita,” alongside Squil-le-he-le Raynell Morris, Tah-Mahs Ellie Kinley, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society President Pritam Singh, and Lolita’s ex-trainer Marcia Henton.
Watch the trailer for Resident Orca.
Directed by Sarah Sharkey Pearce (The Devil You Know) and Simon Schneider (Hadwin’s Judgment), the film is edited by Tony Kent (I am Patrick Swayze) and features music by Josh and Jesse Zubot (Bones of Crows). Executive producers include advocates and Lummi Tribal Elders Squil-le-he-le Raynell Morris and Tah-Mahs Ellie Kinley, along with James Costa (Welcome to Chechnya), Lynne Kirby (Think Skin), Romney Grant, and Melissa Gaucher.
Earlier this summer, ZDF Studios’ Off the Fence (OTF), the team behind the BAFTA and Academy Award-winning My Octopus Teacher, acquired worldwide rights to the documentary outside Canada. Resident Orca was nominated for the Documentary Achievement Award in Miami and will continue its festival tour before being available to broader audiences on Bell Media’s CRAVE in Canada.
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