Gabriela Cowperthwaite Blackfish

Gabriela Cowperthwaite Blackfish

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite
Rated: M
Running Time: 79 minutes

Synopsis: Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, a performing killer whale that killed several people while in captivity. Filmmaker Gabriela Cowperthwaite compiles shocking footage and emotional interviews to explore the creature's extraordinary nature, the species' cruel treatment in captivity, the lives and losses of the trainers and the pressures brought to bear by the multi-billion dollar sea-park industry. Blackfish challenges us to consider our relationship to nature and reveals how little we humans have learned from these highly intelligent and enormously sentient fellow mammals.

Blackfish
Release Date: November 21st, 2013

Director's Statement - Gabriela Cowperthwaite

In the summer of 2010, Dawn Brancheau, a renowned SeaWorld trainer, was killed by Tilikum, a 12,000-pound orca. I remember fragments: something about a ponytail, something about her slipping and falling, about how this almost never happens because in these parks, the animals are happy and the trainers are safe.

But something wasn't right. Why would a highly intelligent animal attack its trainer – in effect, bite the hand that feeds it? I set out to understand this incident not as an activist, but as a mother (who had just taken her kids to SeaWorld) and as a documentary filmmaker (who can't let sleeping dogs lie).

I brought Manny Oteyza aboard as the film's producer and he soon became my right arm. I spoke to Tim Zimmermann, who wrote a phenomenal article about the incident for Outside Magazine, and asked him to be Blackfish's associate producer. I wrote a treatment and we were funded three months later by first-time executive producers Judy Bart and Erica Kahn. We worked with cinematographers Jon Ingalls and Chris Towey with whom both Manny and I have had shorthand for decades, and we set out to tell a story. What story? At that point, I hadn't the foggiest clue. I went about my research respectfully. I strived to give every person involved a chance to talk (even if they declined.. repeatedly). I wasn't setting out to produce an exposé, but rather a film where every perspective would be presented to achieve a greater understanding of animals and their human caretakers.

Thus began a journey of shock and discovery.

Blackfish is my second feature documentary and my first one at Sundance. I can't say this was an easy film to make. There were nightmares, autopsy reports, sobbing interviewees, and miserable animals. But as I moved forward, I knew that in telling the story I was telling the truth. And in telling the truth, I had to show this billion dollar industry for what it was.

I hope you like the film. I don't know if it will change the way you feel about animals in entertainment parks – I didn't intend for it to do so. I do hope it gives you the tools to articulate how you feel about animals, our relationship with them, and what we want to teach our children about it. Finally, the filmmaker in me also hopes that you will feel the same shock and discovery that I did over the two years of bringing Blackfish to fruition.