The village of Shismaref is situated on an island that rises no more than five feet above sea level, protected by a blanket of ice. Global climate change has melted the land and the protective blanket of ice surrounding the island, leaving the village vulnerable to the crashing waves of the seasonal gales. Maclean follows the stories of individuals fighting for a solution to this devastating problem, including Tony Weyiouanna, a community leader, whose family has lived on Shishmaref for generations.
Andrew Okpeaha MacLean is an Iñupiaq filmmaker born and raised in Alaska. His films include NATCHILIAGNIAQTUGUK AAPAGALU (SEAL HUNTING WITH DAD), which had its premiere at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, was named one of the ten best short films at the festival by indieWire, and was selected to screen at the Museum of Modern Art in April, 2005. Other films include KINNAQ NI?AQTUQTUAQ(THE SNARING MADMAN), which won best short film at the 2006 American Indian Film Festival, and SUCH A PERFECT DAY. His most recent documentary, WHEN THE SEASON IS GOOD: ARTISTS OF ARCTIC ALASKA, was a featured screening in the 2007 Arctic Summer Series at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and was acquired for broadcast by ARTE, European Public Television. In his hometown of Barrow, Alaska, he co-founded the Iñupiat Theater, the first theater company in the country dedicated to performing entirely in the indigenous Iñupiaq language. He also served for three years as the Artistic Director of Stickfigure Productions, a theater company based in Seattle. He has traveled in North and South America, Europe and New Zealand, worked in Siberia as a biological research assistant and is a member of the Egasak whaling crew in Barrow. He is a recipient of the John H. Johnson Film Award, a 2004 Princess Grace Foundation Graduate Film Fellowship, the 2003-2004 Martin E. Segal prize, the 2008 Clive J. Davis Foundation Grant and the 2008 Riese Organization Grant. He holds his MFA in film directing from New York University.
