Director's Statement: In 2018, I was among the millions of people worldwide who were captivated by J35, the orca mother known as Tahlequah. Carrying her deceased newborn’s body across the Salish Sea, she appeared to dance with her daughter through the waves, in a grief that was visceral to witness. In 2020, stranded indoors due to the Covid pandemic, Tahlequah entered my thoughts once more. I was sitting with the pain of the world around me, as well as with my own experiences of loss. As a teenager, I endured the deaths of my father and brother, among others. During the soul-searching of my pandemic isolation, I resolved to use those setbacks as the basis for my artistry and mission in the world. Connecting Tahlequah’s mourning to that of my own, I became convinced that her struggle had not been in vain. To retell her true story through the magic of cinema, I partnered with the acclaimed Meinart Animation Studio in Vilnius, Lithuania to co-produce the film. Their frame-by-frame animation is supported by a lush orchestral soundtrack, which was composed by Emmy and Grammy winner Lolita Ritmanis, and which I produced with her and Grammy winners Amy Andersson and Mark Mattson. The soundtrack was recorded live by the Latvia Studio Orchestra, and interwoven into that aural landscape are actual archival sounds of Tahlequah as she carried her daughter’s body in 2018, captured by underwater hydrophones at the time and provided to our production by The Whale Museum in Friday Harbor, Washington. In making this film, our team hopes to bring attention to the plight of these endangered marine mammals in the face of the climate crisis. Tahlequah shows the painful future that lays ahead for orca and human alike if we do not change course. From the depths of the Salish Sea, her actions seem to echo across a world full of grief, asking us to do better. For her, for us, for our one planet. We are all Tahlequah.

Daniel Kreizberg is an award-winning filmmaker and actor who graduated with Honors from NYU Tisch. His debut short film “Tahlequah the Whale: A Dance of Grief,” which he wrote, directed and narrated in 2023, was awarded the “Special Mention of the Festival” at the Oscar-qualifying Animayo International Film Festival. It also received an Honorable Mention at the Jackson Wild Media Awards (“the nature equivalent to the Oscars”), the Canuto Prize at DocsMX, a Student Jury Prize at the Lucca Film Festival, a Next Generation Indie Film Award, was shortlisted for two Young Director Awards, and has travelled to over a dozen festivals worldwide to date. As an actor, Daniel made his New York stage debut at Carnegie Hall, performing the role of Lazarus Solomon in “Ellis Island: The Dream of America.” Daniel tells both live-action and animated stories focused on the truth of what it means to be alive, to help make a more compassionate world.