The Great White Whale, a new and already multi-awarded film by Woodend filmmaker Michael Dillon, is to have its local premiere at the Theatre Royal Castlemaine on Sunday September 15.
The Great White Whale isn’t a whale. It’s a mountain. A mountain few have heard of. On an island few have heard of. Ironically, the name of the island is Heard Island.
Heard Island is a snowy volcanic island that rears up from the wild Southern Ocean like a great white whale. It’s named after the person who first sighted it, the eagle-eyed Cornelia Heard, who pacing the deck of a ship that had set a course a little south of the normal shipping route, alerted her husband, the captain, and it was put on the charts.
The news spread to sealers and last century they plundered its wildlife almost to extinction. It was during this period that its highest peak was named Big Ben, in honour of a sealer named Ben who was big.
Later it became a British possession, and in 1947 it was given to Australia. And so, at the stroke of a pen, its highest mountain, Big Ben, 500 metres higher than Mt Kosciuszko, became Australia’s highest peak.
When the world’s highest peak, Everest, was first climbed in 1953, Australia’s highest peak, remarkably, remained unclimbed.
The first serious attempt to climb Big Ben took place in 1963, 10 years after Everest was first climbed. A three-man team attempted it and almost died in five different ways, as the film graphically shows.
Although it had almost killed them, two of those men, Dr Grahame Budd and Warwick Deacock, were obsessed with trying again.
They saw themselves as Captain Ahab with their shared obsession to overcome their Moby Dick – The Great White Whale.
They decided to charter a yacht and sail to the island, a 4000km journey each way, through the world’s wildest seas.
What attracted the filmmaker Michael Dillon to make this film was, “first of all, the story, this amazing, forgotten, Australian story.
And it’s one I knew about from the beginning as I was one of the many who volunteered to get the yacht ready”.
Dillon already knew the leader, Warwick Deacock, but got to know the other extraordinary individuals who set off on this epic voyage. Most of them hadn’t even sailed before, “and one of them, the bravest of them all, couldn’t swim,” Dillon said.
The filmmaker had been testing the waters internationally, sending evolving versions of the film to International Mountain Film Festivals.
He was encouraged when the unfinished version of the film won the Grand Prize at the International Mountain and Adventure Film Festival in Bilbao Spain last December and it has since won five more international awards.
Most recently Dillon was awarded best local director at the 2024 Melbourne International Documentary Film Festival.
The local screening, including a Q&A with filmmaker Michael Dillon, will be held at 4.30pm on Sunday September 15. Tickets at www.theatreroyalcastlemaine.com.au
The Great White Whale isn’t a whale. It’s a mountain. 
Woodend filmmaker Michael Dillon.
