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One summer in a fjord called Nootka Sound on the remote west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, a young killer whale whom people call Luna gets separated from his pod. Like us humans, orcas are highly social and depend on their families, but Luna finds himself desperately alone. So he tries to make contact with people. He begs for attention at boats and docks. He looks soulfully into your eyes. He wants to have his tongue rubbed. When you whistle at him, he squeaks and whistles back. He follows you around like a puppy.
People fall in love with him -- a cook on an old freighter, a gruff fisheries officer, an elder and a young man from a First Nations band. But the government decides that being friendly with Luna is bad for him, and tries to keep him and people apart.
This effort becomes hilarious and baffling, because Luna refuses to give up his search for a social life. Policemen arrest people for rubbing Luna's nose. Fines are levied. But humans are social, too. When the government tells people they can't even look at Luna, people still go out to meet him, like smugglers carrying friendship through the dark.
But friendship is complicated, even among humans themselves, and does it work between species? People who love Luna don't agree on how to help him. The fisheries officer wants Luna captured and trucked away to try to force him to connect with his family. The young First Nations man thinks that's disrespectful because his band says Luna is the spirit of a chief. The elder believes Luna is supernatural, the sea's source of wisdom and justice. The ship's cook doesn't know what to do except marvel when she looks in his eyes.
Then conflict comes to Nootka Sound. The government builds a huge net. The First Nations' members bring out their canoes. Then, suddenly, as the two sides start to fight over Luna on the wind-swept water, the young whale has all the friends he wants. As the officer tries to lead Luna into the net, the First Nations elder sings and paddles and tries to lead him away, and Luna plays among the boats like a kid out of school. To Luna this must be great, but in this human conflict above him, someone has to win and someone has to lose, and where will his friends be then?
Nothing goes as planned on Nootka Sound. Finally even the filmmakers get swept up in events that catch everyone by surprise and challenge the very nature of that special and mysterious bond we humans call friendship.
In the end, THE WHALE explores one of the greatest of mysteries: Who are these lives who share the planet with us humans, and what are the connections between us that we do not yet know?

The story of Luna, a lost killer whale, who sought contact with humans and in doing so redefined the possibilities for interaction between whales and humans.