Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tomorrow, Tuesday, April 5: CHILDREN OF THE ARCTIC
Nick Brandestini’s coming-of-age portrait of Alaskan teens debuted at Zurich in 2014. Its festival circuit has also included Santa Barbara, Big Sky, Cinequest, Salem, Guam, Anchorage, Available Light, and Oxford, among other events.
In Barrow AK, the northernmost community in the US, four Inupiat and one transplanted Eskimo feel the pull of both traditional Native ways and of modernity as they transition from teenagers to young adults. High school seniors Flora and Josiah make plans to marry and temporarily relocate to Fairbanks to attend university but find themselves drawn back to smalltown Barrow and family ties. Samuel, Josiah’s younger brother, learns traditional hunting and whaling skills from their grandfather, but worries about the latter’s increasing senility. Ace excels in school, but finds himself torn between community expectations and his own desires for self-improvement. Finally, transplant Maaya tries to connect with her Native roots and to remove the stigma of discussing the prevalence of suicide in the community. Brandestini has crafted a work of strong, if reserved, portraiture that reveals how these young people navigate the delicate balance between the different worlds they inhabit, while also facing the impact of climate change on Barrow’s traditional ways.
what (not) to doc 