It was filmed in 1967 but not released until 1970 when it was shown at a few small cinema halls in an edition that had been expurgated by the communist authorities.
[1] Whale satirizes the extant defects in the economic and social structure of the state in those years.
Despite the miserable catch the captain (Vachkov) reports through the transmitter to the superior of the fishing base Petrov (Nikolov).
After months without any production from the enterprise, the superior of the base in his turn reports personally to the big local boss Kalcho Kalchev (Panov).
They don't stop and decide to specify the catch as a draught of dolphins as more massy kind of sea creature.
Being in private later the local boss has a colourful monologue with the portrait on the wall portraying the minister Parushev (Kaloyanchev) of the field they work in.
Finally the Kalchev's right hand - the lead engineer (Partsalev) insinuate that the dolphin, as a matter of fact, is actually a kind of an whale. "
He is going to tell me to take my hat and go back to the hatter's where I came from ..." So one sunny day in the head department in the capital the message is received - "... We got an whale ...".
In the beginning of the 1950s the screenwriter Hristo Mihov, nicknamed Cheremuhin, followed his wife in the town of Aitos where she was allocated as a doctor.
Mihov undertook a ten-day sailing trip amongst the fishermen so that he could learn their terminology and knowledge.
Vasilev, with the forthcoming fame as a director of The Past-Master, and Cheremuhin retired in the ex-royal residence Sitnyakovo which was turned into the Writer's Union base.
[1] The song that was sung by the state employees while going to the Parushev's villa was composed by Atanas Boyadzhiev.
The final speech by Parushev must be totally revised The film's direction should immediately start working on these corrections. "
Shortly after Whale was filmed in 1967, the eastern Europe was shaken by the doings around the Prague Spring.
Moreover, the authorities noticed even an allusion between the character of Parushev (Kaloyanchev) and the leader of the Bulgarian communists and President of the Republic of that time Todor Zhivkov.
It was also perceived some relation between the character of Kalcho Kalchev (Panov) and Stanko Todorov another communist leader.
He was a nuclear physicist and after a specialization in France he left for North America instead of returning to Bulgaria.
Afterwards Whale was shown in the small Levski cinema in the capital of Sofia again with no preliminary announcement.
Naturally, it gave rise to a broad interest and took his due place among the Bulgarian notable films of those years.