Videography for Communities
Using film to tell the story of resilience from a community perspective.
Alaska-based documentary filmmaker, Ryan Peterson worked with rural communities and the POLARIS research team to tell their stories of resilience from a community perspective.
Visit our YouTube Channel, Arctic POLARIS, to view the latest videos.
Cumikluten (Pay Attention)
Cumikluten (Pay Attention), is a 35-minute documentary featuring the work of POLARIS researchers and community members in Chevak and Dillingham. Though Western Alaska is facing increasingly devastating environmental change, Cup'ik and Yup'ik people find strength in their culture and place-based knowledge, as well as in combining these with new ways of thinking about landscapes and adaptation. Stunning imagery, novel scenes of wild food harvesting, and enlightening moments with community members make Cumikluten (Pay Attention) of interest to all audiences.
Chevak School Sea Week
Sea Week is an annual culture camp for students of Chevak School in Chevak, Alaska. High school students are brought out onto the land to camp on the tundra with their teachers, elders, and peers. There they "learn by doing" about harvesting and preserving wild foods, and about the values that underpin their Cupik way of life.
Chevak, Alaska post Typhoon Merbok
Chevak elders, community members, and youth discuss the impacts of Typhoon Merbok, the strongest storm to hit western Alaska in fifty years, on their community. POLARIS team members visited Chevak weeks after the storm to work with youth and elders on surveying the impacts and to share place based curricula and learning. Video made by Ryan Peterson at Alaskanist Stories.