Beachwood Native Brings Home a Movie About Home

Eric Desatnik can relate to Luna, the subject of the documentary the Beachwood native will bring home tomorrow night.

Like him, Luna left home at a young age. Desatnik and Luna are separated from their families and communities by miles and miles. Both have befriended people in their new surroundings.

But Luna’s story is much more unusual: he is a killer whale.

Desatnik is the executive producer of The Whale, which premieres in Cleveland at Cleveland’s Capitol Theatre and Chagrin Falls’ Chagrin Cinemas Friday night. 

“I was blown away by the impact that this story had on me,” said Desatnik, who was studying forestry and environmental studies at Yale the first time he saw it in 2010. “It was just a beautiful, beautiful, amazing story.”

Desatnik was searching for material for first Environmental Film Festival at Yale, a project he founded in 2008 that is still going today.

Directors Suzanne Chisholm and Michael Parfit followed Luna for three years after they were assigned the story for Smithsonian magazine. After Desatnik saw their first version, he worked with the married duo to rewrite and edit the film. The Whale premiered in Seattle at the beginning of September and has since garnered media attention from major outlets including the Huffington Post, The New York Times and The Hollywood Reporter.

Before Yale, Desatnik earned a bachelor’s degree in communication from Ohio University and worked for a few years before going back to school. At Yale he earned a master’s degree and today is the director of communications at WildAid in San Francisco.

“The environmental arena was something I was very interested in,” said Desatnik. “Finding a way to marry both the entertainment world and environmental advocacy — it’s in this niche that I’m happiest.”

The movie is about more than Luna, said Desatnik. After Luna is separated from his family, he unexpectedly makes contact with humans on Vancouver Island. But it’s not food he’s looking for, notes Parfit on the movie's website — Luna continues to hunt and does not seem to eat the food the residents and tourists give him.

The strange story complicates when humans disagree about how to handle the whale and what is best for him, and Chisholm and Parfit, who is a journalist, cross the line between covering a story and becoming a part of it.

Ryan Reynolds, who grew up in the area the story took place, narrates the film.

Desatnik said his parents, who still live in Beachwood, had an impact on his interest in environmental advocacy: he remembers his father using energy-efficient light bulbs and recycling before anyone else knew what it was.

“Bringing it to Cleveland has always been the most important thing to me,” said Desatnik, who graduated from in 1997. “It’s just an incredibly special moment for me. This whale basically built a home for himself, and it’s a movie about friends, community, family. So bringing this movie back to those things of mine is a dream come true.”

The film's Cleveland premiere is Friday night at 7:10 p.m. at Capitol Theatre, and both Desatnik and Parfit will attend and host a question and answer session immediately following the showing.

It also plays at Chagrin Cinemas. For more movie times and addresses, click here.