ROCKLAND — The Strand Theatre will present the new award-winning documentary In the Whale, the account of a man who survived to tell the tale of being swallowed by a whale, on Friday, Dec. 15 and Saturday, Dec. 16. Screening times on both days is 5:30 p.m., and director David Abel will attend on Friday for a Q&A following the show.

In the shark-filled waters off Cape Cod, Michael Packard has long tempted fate. For several months a year, Packard and his longtime mate, Josiah Mayo, fish in the diving grounds off Provincetown, the idiosyncratic, isolated community where they grew up at the tip of the Cape. Packard buckles on his scuba tank and plunges into the cold waters to hunt on the seafloor.

As the region’s last-remaining commercial lobster diver, the 57-year-old father has had his share of harrowing experiences, but what happened to him on a routine dive during a clear June morning was something he never imagined possible, and many around the world refused to believe. Packard was engulfed by a humpback whale, caught in the cavity of its massive mouth for 30 seconds before being spit out, and then rescued by Mayo and another fisherman.

The publicity was similarly dizzying for the reclusive fisherman, whose survival story spread around the world in news dispatches. But what came after the limelight dimmed was even more significant for Packard.

Director David Abel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covers fisheries and environmental issues for The Boston Globe. Abel's last film, Entangled, won a Jackson Wild award, known as the Oscars of nature films. It also won Best Feature Film at the International Wildlife Film Festival, Best Conservation Film at the International Ocean Film Festival, and the John de Graaf Environmental Filmmaking Award at the Wild & Scenic Film Festival. In 2022, it was nominated for a national Emmy award. Abel also co-directed and produced Sacred Cod, a film about the collapse of the iconic cod fishery in New England, which was broadcast by the Discovery Channel in the spring of 2017.

Running time is 1 hour, 21 minutes.

Tickets are $9/Adults, $8/Seniors and Under 12, $7/Strand Members, and will be available at the box office 30 minutes prior to show time.

For more information, visit www.rocklandstrand.com or call (207) 594-0070 EX 3.

The Strand Theatre is located at 345 Main St., Rockland.