the islands and the whales

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DIRECTOR: MIKE DAY

Winner of top awards at the Hot Docs and DOC NYC film festivals, this visually stunning film focuses on the inhabitants of the Faroe Islands during a period of social and environmental upheaval. Long dependent on hunting pilot whales and seabirds for their survival, these descendants of Vikings get a bracing reality check when a longtime doctor discovers their customary diet is slowly poisoning them. With the arrival of Baywatch star and “Save the Whales” activist Pamela Anderson and her Sea Shepherd crew, filmmaker Mike Day observes a community at a critical crossroads and their way of life irrevocably threatened. With "sweeping cinematography," "phenomenal sound design," and "impressive access" (POV Magazine), The Islands and The Whales paints a complex portrait of the struggles between subsistence, tradition, conservation and climate change.

 
 
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Mike Day

A 2014 Sundance fellow and a 2015 recipient of the San Francisco Film Society’s Documentary Film Fund grant, Scottish director and cinematographer Mike Day transitioned from a legal career to documentary filmmaking in 2009. His previous film, The Guga Hunters of Ness (2011), also set in the North Atlantic, screened at international festivals as well as on the BBC.