Requiem for the Last Whale on Earth

Rutger Hauer and Sil van der Woerd Create Film as Gift for Sea Shepherd

Requiem 2019 - a short film denouncing whaling

Rutger Hauer meets the last whale on Earth in Requiem 2019

Photo: Sea ShepherdDutch actor and Sea Shepherd board member Rutger Hauer and filmmaker Sil van der Woerd have joined forces to create a moving short film denouncing whaling.

The film, Requiem 2019, premiered during the Playgrounds Audiovisual Arts Festival in Amsterdam on November 20, 2012 and debuts online today.

Requiem 2019 is a unique co-production between Rutger Hauer and the sculptor/filmmaker Sil van der Woerd. Through a blend of fiction, animation, and music the film chronicles the last whale on earth coming face-to-face with the source of its destruction- man, in the shape of actor Rutger Hauer.

The Dutch actor has been closely involved with Sea Shepherd for many years as an honorary board member and referred to this film as “a gift for Sea Shepherd.” In search of inspiration, Van der Woerd spent hours looking at Sea Shepherd’s raw footage, filmed during the annual Antarctic whale defense campaigns. Van der Woerd said:

“The images you normally get to see via the media are only short clips. It was extremely intense watching that awful, raw footage like that. I was enormously affected by it. The realization that the slaughtering just goes on …’

Rutger Hauer has been fascinated by whales ever since he was a boy and had this to say about the project:

“The slaughter of whales as a source of food is so outdated. Just because that is what they have always done? Tradition? Come on, now! People are the worst type of animal. One day, during a trip in a canoe, I literally looked straight into the eye of a whale. It is something that every man on Earth should experience. We must not be allowed to destroy these beautiful creatures. The consequences would be enormous. This is how we got around to the theme for Requiem 2019. Sil and I simply had to make something to stop people hunting down these wonderful creatures. I can’t go along with Sea Shepherd during their campaign. It’s better for me to do what I do best, and here it is!”

The result is an exciting, emotional and poetic short film. The relationship between Hauer and van der Woerd goes back to 2010 when they met at the I’ve Seen Films festival, organized annually by Hauer in Milan, Italy. At the festival, van der Woerd was awarded a prize for his short film White Swan. Shortly after that year’s festival, Hauer got in touch with van der Woerd in Los Angeles, where both men live. “We hit it off immediately when we first met and we soon started talking about the oceans, whales, and Sea Shepherd,” said van der Woerd.