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Chasing Whales

SHORT SYNOPSIS:
Chasing whales is an experimental short documentary film following the journey of the French filmmaker La Fille Renne on the trail of cetaceans, reflecting on our relation to them and the evolution of their hunt in Northern Europe.

SYNOPSIS:
“Travels after travels, in endless expanses of ocean and preserved nature, cetaceans set the tempo for my weeks one way or another: dead or alive, skeleton or cut-up flesh, archaeological artefact or decoration, hunted or stranded.”
After coming across cetaceans or their artefacts in Norway, in Lofoten, and Orkney, filmmaker La Fille Renne decided to take their camera to the Faroes and the Hebrides.
From magnificent landscapes to whaling stations’ ruins and whale skeletons, their research caused them to face past and current relationships between humans and those sea mammals.
They question the fragility of our links to those giants, the current whaling practices inherited from subsistence behaviour, the human impact on marine ecosystems, and the future.

  • La Fille Renne
    Director
  • La Fille Renne
    Writer
  • La Fille Renne
    Producer
  • La Fille Renne
    Photographer
  • Elisa Monteil
    Sound creation
  • Elisa Monteil
    Voice-over
  • Elisa Monteil
    Sound editing
  • Raphaël Mouterde
    Sound mix
  • La Fille Renne
    Editor
  • Swann Agnelli
    Translation
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    Chasing Whales
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 26 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 1, 2025
  • Country of Origin:
    France
  • Country of Filming:
    Faroe Islands, United Kingdom
  • Language:
    French
  • Shooting Format:
    35mm
  • Aspect Ratio:
    2.66:1
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • In The Palace International Short Film Festival
    Pernik
    Bulgaria
    July 1, 2025
    Bulgarian Premiere
    Official Selection
  • The Norwegian Short Film Festival
    Grimstad
    Norway
    June 14, 2025
    World Premiere
    Official Selection
Director Biography - La Fille Renne

La Fille Renne is a non-binary photographer, filmmaker and artist from Lyon (France). They are passionate about analogue photography, ecology, osteology, the Arctic, and also the intimacy. They direct short movies on film, alone or as part of a collective with Laure Giappiconi and Elisa Monteil.

They have done 6 short-movies together: Alive, Mermaid, Love, While I’m still breathing, Dancing bodies, and Genderfluid. They have been shown in numerous festivals around the world, from Berlin to Montreal, Sundance, Rotterdam’s IFF, Athens, Bogota, Chennai, Lahore, Istanbul, Warsaw…

Chasing Whales is their first solo movie.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Being passionate about marine ecosystems and cold landscapes, I’ve been photographing the Arctic and Northern Europe for years now. Every time I visit these places and experience their peculiar climate, the cetaceans are there, one way or another.

My ecology and zooarchaeology training led me to document their presence, our relationship to them, and the hunting practices that ensued from them.
That’s why I decided to bring together the chase of cetaceans and their artefacts and my visual identity in a hybrid movie, somewhere between documentary and poetry.

I developed the images myself, in an artisanal fashion. Using an analogue camera (with Kodak and Lomography films) and experimenting with the chemicals convey a dreamy aspect to the story and the landscapes I filmed. The distortions on the cellulose also represent the fragility of our ecosystems and the urgent need to put in place better conservation programs for them and the cetaceans.

Elisa Monteil’s rich voice-over and sound design put the finishing touch to the images and allow you to immerse yourself fully in the voyage Chasing Whales is offering, between the amazement of discoveries and anxiety towards the future.