David Abel’s films tackle 2 horrors from the deep
It’s a whale of a story.
“In the Whale” follows Michael Packard, a lobster diver who was caught in the mouth of a humpback whale in Provincetown and lived to tell the tale. Along with “Inundation District,” it’s one of two recent documentaries from filmmaker and Globe contributing reporter David Abel currently screening across New England.
Packard’s account of his experience became instant fodder for talk shows and news outlets in June 2021, and like many reporters, Abel was drawn to covering it. But when the buzz around Packard started to die down, he realized there was still more to say.
“After the story ran in the paper, I continued to have conversations with him and his mate,” said Abel, who grew up near the water in Jericho, N.Y. He was eventually invited to join Packard on a fishing trip off the coast of Provincetown. “During that trip, I felt there was a much deeper story to tell,” he said.
That story was less about Packard’s miraculous escape from death and more about the whirlwind of fame that came and went — and how so much attention affected a private man like Packard. Throughout the press frenzy, Packard met everyone from Rachel Maddow to Jimmy Kimmel and had to reckon with his newfound celebrity while dealing with the emotional and physical toll the incident took on him, including bouts of depression and ligament damage to his ACL, MCL, and PCL.
Still, Packard continues to lobster dive. And that doesn’t surprise Abel. “He is who he is,” he said. “For a lot of people, they might have decided this was a sign to hang up the flippers, but he is a diver, so he has kept at it, and he loves it.”
The director thinks of the film as a love story, citing Packard’s appreciation for his work and family as the key for getting through hardships. “The [title] has a literal and a figurative meaning,” he said. “The literal meaning is obvious, but the figurative meaning is he is often in the whale of his depression. Ultimately, it’s the love that keeps him going.”
Abel has spent a long time covering marine-related stories, both as a reporter and a filmmaker. His documentary, “Inundation District,” examines a different horror from the sea: rising tides. That film, which was produced by The Boston Globe and premiered at the GlobeDocs Film Festival, weighs the inevitability of climate change against Boston’s decision to revamp the Seaport District, a neighborhood that sits directly in harm’s way.
“We’ve just spent billions of dollars building up all of this coastal real estate, and other infrastructure is pretty much at sea level,” Abel said. “We’re going to have to figure out how to protect our city.”
“In the Whale” will screen at the Somerville Theatre on Thursday at 7 p.m. and “Inundation District” will screen at Cape Cinema on Sunday at 7 p.m. For more information on both films, visit inthewhalefilm.com and inundationdistrict.com.