Documentary filmmaker Drew Xanthopoulos started reading about whale cognition, culture and communication around four years ago, and was blown away by what he found.“It was stranger than any science fiction I’d ever read or watched on the screen,” Xanthopoulos says.
“It occurred to me that if I’m having this much of an emotional effect from reading about the science, surely the people who are out there on boats for months and months doing the work, it must be profound for them.”So he started attending whale research conferences, where he met Michelle Fournet (pictured above right) and Ellen Garland, the subjects of his latest documentary “Fathom.” The film follows the two researchers out into the field as the former attempts to have a conversation with humpback whales, while the latter pieces together how whale song travels across vast swathes of ocean.Variety caught up with Xanthopoulos ahead of the film’s U.
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