‘RESIDENT ORCA’ documentary shot in the Salish Sea nominated for prestigious award

RESIDENT ORCA is a documentary that was partially shot in Greater Victoria and in the Salish Sea about a captive orca’s journey to freedom. 

The film shows Lolita the orca’s harrowing fight for survival and freedom after 53 years in captivity in a Miami-based aquarium, having been captured as a baby. 

She spent those 53 years performing in the smallest killer whale tank in North America. 

The synopsis for RESIDENT ORCA says that there were decades of failed attempts to bring her out of captivity and back to the seas she should call home. 

During the filming of the documentary, Lolita falls ill and her advocates are forced to ask themselves if it is too late to save her.

RESIDENT ORCA was both Sarah Sharkey Pearce and Simon Schneider’s first time directing and it has been received well so far when it premiered at the Miami Film Festival in April.

Since its premiere, the film has been nominated for a prestigious award, the 2024 Jackson Wild Media Awards in the “People & Nature” category. 

This award is sought after by hundreds of filmmakers who compete in the competition, which has been referred to as the nature equivalent of the Oscars. 

Additionally, it was recently announced that the company behind BAFTA and Academy award-winning My Octopus Teacher, ZDF Studios’ Off the Fence, has acquired the worldwide rights to RESIDENT ORCA. 

Currently, the film is still being toured around various film festivals around the world, but it is slated to be streaming on Crave in Canada in the near future. 

Some of its local filming locations include the traditional lands of the W̱SÁNEĆ (Saanich), T’souke (Sooke), lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees) Peoples, along with some Washington-based locations. 

The Jackson Wild Media Awards will be holding a Media Awards Gala in Washington, DC on September 5th to hand out the award for which RESIDENT ORCA has been nominated.