A whale can live 50-75 years. Its afterlife is equally long and spectacular.
After a whale dies, it begins to sink. As it drifts slowly downward, its body provides sustenance for an incredibly diverse community of organisms. In Whale Fall (After Life of a Whale), the stages of consumption are illustrated by paper puppets of the fish, crustaceans and microscopic bacteria that feed upon the whale for decades after its death. A musical puppet-play and an educational science piece, the film is an amusing and informative look at the life cycles of the organisms – some familiar, some spectacularly alien – that inhabit the ocean’s depths.
Director: Sharon Shattuck, Flora Lichtman