On June 11, 2021, lobster diver Michael Packard found himself in the mouth of a Humpback Whale off the coast of Provincetown. Forty seconds later, he resurfaced.

“It was like I was being squeezed...I was just enveloped by his mouth, it was just hard, dark, and scary,” Mr. Packard recalled in the 2022 documentary about the experience, entitled: In the Whale: the Greatest Fish Story Ever Told. “This is it, this is how I’m gonna die in a whale’s mouth.”

Mr. Packard survived the whale encounter, and on Thursday afternoon, the Edgartown Library hosted a screening of the documentary, along with a conversation with the director David Abel. The event was sponsored by the Friends of the Edgartown Public Library and the Friends of the Edgartown Council on Aging (The Anchors).

Mr. Abel is a longtime reporter for the Boston Globe and when accounts of a man being swallowed by a whale, the paper sent him to cover the event to “effectively debunk” the story, he explained before the screening.

But after speaking with Mr. Packard and several others involved in the incident, Mr. Abel began to trust both Mr. Packard and his story. Rather than exposing a myth, the Boston Globe published Mr. Abel’s story under the headline: This Fish Story Isn’t Hard to Swallow.

When Mr. Packard learned about Mr. Abel’s past experience in documentary film the two agreed to bring the story to the screen.

Throughout the filming process, Mr. Abel discovered that Mr. Packard’s whale encounter was the third of three near-death experiences. At age 14 he almost drowned after swimming after his unanchored boat, and in 2001 he survived a plane crash in the Costa Rican jungle.

Mr. Abel interviewed several of Mr. Packer’s family members for the film, who expressed their worries about his life at sea. His mother, Anne, was especially concerned about his desire to continue lobster diving after the whale incident.

“My mom said she’d pay me what I make to stop diving,” Mr. Packard says in he film.

Thus far, Mr. Packard has not taken his mother’s advice, saying in the film how he still finds his solace at the bottom of the ocean despite his past experiences.

During the Q&A after the screening, Mr. Abel emphasized the Packard family’s authenticity.

“They were almost always willing to have me around and speak from their hearts,” he said.

The one thing Mr. Abel said he wished he had was a second eyewitness’ account.

“One of my failings is that it’s a one sided story, and I never heard the side of the story from the whale.”

In the Whale: the Greatest Fish Story Ever Told will eventually hit streaming platforms and there will be more screenings throughout the summer on the Island and Cape Cod. Visitinthewhalefilm.com/screenings.