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Logline

The Last Whaling Station is a feature length documentary film that follows the journey of Iranian artist and activist, Anahita Babaei, and American filmmaker Micah Garen, as they try to end whaling in Iceland.

Synopsis

The Last Whaling Station is a feature length documentary film about the journey of Anahita Babaei and Micah Garen as they try to stop whaling in Iceland.

The last land-based whaling station in the world is run one man in Iceland, Kristjen Loftsson. Against strong public criticism he continues to hunt fin whales, the second largest mammal on the planet and one critical to the survival of all species.

Fin whales are a keystone species. They fertilize the ocean through their feces, while sequestering tons of carbon in their lifetimes.

Most of the whales Loftsson kills are female, and many are pregnant. Whaling in Iceland should have ended decades ago with the international moratorium in 1985, but Iceland, Norway, Japan and the Faroe Islands continue this “tradition” with no reasonable justification. The whale meat from Iceland is almost entirely sold to Japan where there is a dwindling market, some of it even ending up in dog food.

The film takes the viewer on a dramatic year-long journey that culminates with Anahita occupying the crows nest of one of the whaling boats in a last ditch effort to stop it from going and killing whales.

Meet the Filmmakers

Micah Garen and Anahtia Babaei – Directors/Producers
Micah Garen and Anahtia Babaei met in the Arctic circle in northern Sweden in December 2021 while working on different film projects on about the impact of climate change on Sami culture. They quickly found a connection in a similar artistic sensibility and a shared concern for the fate of the planet. The combination was a unique confluence of elements: east and west, masculine and feminine, journalism and activism, art and documentary.

Micah Garen is an award winning filmmaker, photographer and writer with twenty years experience including documenting in the conflict zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. He has won the Gold Nymph for best documentary at the Monte Carlo Festival du Television, and his work has been nominated for an Emmy three times.

Anahita is an award winning Iranian filmmaker, photographer, writer, activist and artist and has a background in art, philosophy. Their shared filmic vision merges their creative approaches in a harmonious duality that offers a humanistic depth to exploring the climate crisis.

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact fiscalsponsorship@filmindependent.org.