The Snake and the Whale screening, finale to Orca Action Month on June 26

||| FROM FRIDAY HARBOR FILM FESTIVAL |||

On Friday, June 26 at 7 PM Friday Harbor Film Festival presents The Snake and the Whale at the San Juan Island Library in Friday Harbor and the Lopez Center for Community and the Arts on Lopez Island. Following the film, audiences at both venues will watch a recorded conversation between Executive Producer Scott Levy and FHFF Producer and Host Norris Palmer, featuring updates on the film and dam removal efforts.

The Snake and the Whale
Directed by six-time Emmy Award winner John Carlos Frey, The Snake and the Whale traces the history of four federal dams on the Lower Snake River in Washington State and their cascading impact on Idaho's salmon runs and on the 74 Southern Resident Orcas whose survival depends on that food supply.

The film weaves together investigative journalism, expert testimony, Indigenous voices, and the story of Sk’Ch’elh-tenaut— known as Tokitae — a Southern Resident orca captured at age four and held in captivity for 53 years, to ask a question communities across the Pacific Northwest are wrestling with: what will it take to restore the salmon runs these whales depend on to survive?

The film has earned eight festival awards including the Grand Jury Award at the Greenpoint Film Festival (top film among 123 entries), the Grand Prize at EKOFilm, Europe's oldest environmental film festival, and the EcoFilm Award at the Boston Film Festival. It was nominated for Best “Things to Consider” Feature Film at the 2025 Friday Harbor Film Festival.

As Frey states in the film's closing narration: “After 50 years and billions of dollars of efforts, Snake River salmon and the Southern Resident Orca are on the brink of extinction because of the Snake River dams. Maybe it&’s time to listen to the whales instead of politicians and special interests.”

Scott Levy, Executive Producer
Levy is a Sun Valley, Idaho-based environmental advocate who has worked on Snake River salmon issues for nearly 30 years.
He founded BlueFish.org in 1999 as an information advocacy platform focused on Idaho's wild salmon and steelhead and has
served as a pro se amicus curiae, filing independently in federal court, in the long-running litigation over the Lower Snake
River dams. The Snake and the Whale is the cinematic result of that three-decade campaign.

The Best of the Fest Series
Each month through September Best of the Fest presents award-winning documentaries along with Q&As with the films’ directors and subjects. Programs begin at 7 pm. All Friday Harbor programs will be at the San Juan Island Library. Lopez Island programs will be at the Lopez Island Grange, Lopez Center for Community and the Arts, or at the Lopez Island Library. Since they’re on Fridays, they are a great “date night” activity. Check the full schedule at fhff.org.

The Snake and the Whale is sponsored by Island Thyme, with support from the 2026 Best of the Fest In-kind Sponsor: The Journal of the San Juan Islands and 2026 Best of the Fest Series Presenting Media Sponsor: CascadePBS.

The Orca Action Month Film Series is presented by the Stewardship Network of the San Juans and co-sponsored by the Friday Harbor Film Festival, San Juan Islands Visitors Bureau, The Whale Museum, Center for Whale Research, F.O.L.K.S. (Friends of Lime Kiln Society), and Friends of the San Juans.