On Saturday, January 24, the North Bend Theatre will present a special screening of 76 Days Adrift, the gripping new documentary chronicling sailor Steven Callahan’s extraordinary 1982 survival at sea.
Executive‑produced by Academy Award–winning filmmaker Ang Lee, the film brings Callahan’s bestselling memoir Adrift: 76 Days Lost at Sea to the screen with such vivid immediacy you can almost smell the briny air and feel a shark scrape along the bottom of an impossibly thin life raft. At times, the film pulls you so completely into Callahan’s ordeal that the terror of being lost at sea feels startlingly close.
Following the screening, Executive Producer Robert Sennott will appear live and in person for an audience Q&A. Sennott has been closely connected to Callahan and this story for decades, and his insights illuminate both the filmmaking process and the emotional intensity his former classmate Callahan endured while alone at sea.
A Story of Hope, Perseverance, and the Will to Survive
Sennott describes 76 Days Adrift as “a film with so much hope and perseverance… one of the most revered survival stories of our time.” He emphasizes that Callahan’s ordeal is not only a tale of endurance, but one that “reaches out and makes you want to feel something.”
In interviews, Sennott describes the emotional power of Callahan’s journey, a saga that began with an unfortunate collision with a whale, continued with a desperate launch into a life raft, and culminated in an 1,800‑mile drift across the Atlantic. He highlights the ingenuity that kept Callahan alive, noting how he “learned how to work a solar distiller that could turn seawater into something he could drink, though on a good day it produced only one to two pints.”
Sennott also reflects on the unexpected companionship Callahan found at sea: “He became ‘friends’ with some of the fish that gathered around the raft. He formed a kind of community with them.” These moments, Sennott says, reveal the film’s deeper resonance, the fragile boundary between isolation and connection, fear and hope, despair and determination.
Event Details
The North Bend Theatre is pleased to bring this remarkable story to the Snoqualmie Valley community on Saturday, January 24 at 6:30 p.m., offering audiences a rare opportunity to experience the film on the big screen and hear directly from Executive Producer Robert Sennott. Tickets are available at http://northbendtheatre.com
Media Inquiries
Executive Producer Robert Sennott is available for interviews. To request an interview or for press-related questions, please contact Robert Sennott at robertfsennott1@gmail.com or 774-361-8196. For information about the theatre screening please contact Beth Burrows, theatre owner, at beth@northbendtheatre.com or 425-753-9165.
