Animal rights activists and plummeting wildlife populations threaten the longheld fishing practices of inhabitants on the Danish Faroe Islands. However, the discovery of high levels of mercury in whale meat forces this isolated community to face the dangers of their controversial tradition.

A discussion with Dr Tom Thornton from the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, chaired by Science Oxford, follows the screening of this compelling and challenging documentary.

Dr Tom Thornton is a teacher and researcher with interests in human ecology, adaptation, local and traditional ecological knowledge, conservation, coastal and marine environments, conceptualizations of space and place, and the political ecology of resource management. www.eci.ox.ac.uk/people/tthornton.html

‘The Islands And The Whales knows when to be small, and its intimate portraits of day to day life illustrate how the monumental intersects with the personal.’ ★★★★ Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film

‘An enveloping look at a community whose centuries-old way of life may be ending.’ John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter

Director Mike Day. Denmark, 2016. Faroese/Danish/subs.