April 26, 2024 at 7 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Modern Theatre
Suffolk Unviersity
525 Washington Street Boston, MA 02111
Driving Directions
Filmmaker David Abel
Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University
Susan H. Spurlock (sspurlock@suffolk.edu, 617 504-7297)
IN THE WHALE is a feature-length film about arguably the greatest fish story ever told, though this one is true. It's the account of a man who was engulfed by a humpback whale, caught in the watery cavity of its massive mouth. After some 30 seconds in a pitch-black captivity, in which he expected to die, he was spit out, fins first, to the surface. 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, 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 57-year-old 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.