One With the Whale
Peter Chelkowski, Jim Wickens
202 | USA | 79 min
Original with English subtitles
Agragiiq Chris Apassingok is a young Yupik who lives with his family on an island in the Bering Sea, far in the north, halfway between Alaska and Russia. Whaling there means both tradition and survival, and so the whole village celebrates the 17-year-old when he becomes the youngest in his community to harpoon a 20-meter-long bowhead whale. The 700 residents can live off of it for several months.
But when his mother proudly reports it on Facebook, a shitstorm breaks out. Killing whales! Online activists in the sheltered America far away in the south cannot understand that other values are vital for people living traditionally in the far north.
The documentary "One With the Whale" delves into the world of the Apassingok family, how they survive in the inhospitable world of the Bering Sea - and how they cope with the unfamiliar and almost even harsher world of animal rights activists from the comfortable and climate-killing south.