Who Killed Miracle?

cast and crew

Writer, Director, Producer | SCOTT RENYARD

Executive Producer | SANDY FLANGAN

Sandy Flanagan is a BC film industry veteran having founded Reel West Disgest some 30 years ago. Flanagan has served as Executive produced on a half dozen feature documentaries. Flanagan is co-creater and writer of the 26 episode animated series "Jibber Jabber" for YTV which has been distributed around the world.

Associate Producer | NOLA WUTANEE

Director of Photography | GORAN BASARIC

Goran Basaric was born and raised in Yugoslavia. He graduated with a BA in cinematography at the University of Arts, Belgrade, and immediately began his career in the film industry. He relocated to Vancouver and became a Canadian citizen January 1994 and has established himself as series and television director of photography. His recent credits include: Ana and Kristine’s beauty call, Fat Lab, Keeping it Real (10 episodes), Take it Outside (38 episodes), Vanity Insanity I and II, and Love it or Lose it (24 episodes). Basaric is also an accomplished stills photographer and artist. His images have been seen around the world.

Narrator | AUGUST SCHELLENBERG

Nominated for an Emmy Award © for Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or TV-movie for his role as Sitting Bull in HBO’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, August Schellenberg has created some indelible performances throughout his 40-year-long career. He is perhaps best known for his performance as the wary but humanistic chieftain Chomina in Bruce Beresford’s Black Robe, for which he won a Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and was nominated for an Australian Film Institute Award in the same category. August also starred in Free Willy series of features about the release of an Orca.

Composer | HEATHER KEMSKI

Heather Kemski is a composer who has written the music for numerous projects in the film industry over the past three years. Heather graduated from Red Deer College with a music diploma in classical piano, after which she spent a year studying composition at Simon Fraser University. She is currently studying music and drama, completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Alberta, while acting as musical director on an Edmonton-based theatrical production. "Who Killed Miracle" is the first documentary film Heather has scored.

Special Thanks

Bill Davis, Bob Wright, Angus Matthews, Larry McInerney, Lance Barrett-Lennard, Alexandra Morton, Paul Watson, Patrick Moore, Graeme Ellis, Robert and Gaye Webber, Rochelle and Peter Termehr, Tim Andrews, and Tag Gornall.

awards

synopsis

June 1977, a baby Orca was spotted swimming erratically near Naniamo, British Columbia. It was in distress, vocalizing and swimming erratically. Two weeks later, Bill Davis, a sport fisherman discovered the baby Orca in Menzies Bay near Campbell River. Davis befriended the little whale and began to feed her by hand in the wild. Bill's phone call to Murray Newman at the Vancouver Aquarium triggered a series of phone calls which ended at the office of “Sealand of the Pacific” and it's owner, Bob Wright.




Bob Wright thought the story of a fisherman feeding a killer whale by hand was crazy. It had never been done before. Once at Menzies Bay, Wright and his colleagues were stunned to learn that Bill was, in fact, feeding a killer whale by hand. They quickly realized the little whale was near death and needed emergency medical care. They decided to capture the baby Orca and take her back to Victoria on the back of a flatdeck truck. The little Orca would survive the 6 hour trek to Victoria, but when she was lowered into the pool she sank to the bottom. Her rescuers lifted her to the surface which began a six month odessey of close calls and several miracles before the baby Orca would be declared healthy. Hence, she would become known as Miracle.

Miracle would later become the object of a political fight. Environmental activists called for Miracle's return to the wild. They testified in the court of public opinion that killer whales were dying prematurely in oceanariums around the world at alarming rates. But Sealand argued that Miracle would not be able to survive in the wild alone. She had become too accustomed to humans and it would not work.

Sealand then made plans to move Miracle to a new pool at Sealand. The question now facing Sealand was not about whether to move her, but how. Everyone realized that Miracle's story had captured the attention of the entire country and that thousands of people would come out to watch the move. So, they decided to move her by helicopter. This was a feat that had never been tried before. On a day in February 1978, Miracle was moved to her new home through the air.

Miracle became a star performer at Sealand and people came in droves to see her. Miracle, however, would begin to exhibit strange behaviours. Was her traumatic early start in life now taking it's toll? Then, it January of 1982, Miracle suddenly died under a cloud of controversy. A mysterious caller claimed to have bungled a plot to free her. Was this a bungled plot by environmentalists to free the litte whale? Or was it a cover up?

Director Scott Renyard will tell this story using never-before-seen archival footage of Miracle’s historic rescue, scenes of her life in captivity, and interviews with the key players in her life to reveal the chain of events that led to her death.