One with the Whale (79 min, Pete Chelkowski, Jim Wickens, 2023)

Friday 9:00am — Hunting whales is a matter of life or death for the residents of St. Lawrence. When a shy Alaska Native teen becomes the youngest person ever to harpoon a whale for his village, his family is blindsided by thousands of keyboard activists brutally attacking him online—without full perspective on the importance of the hunt to his community's well-being.

Language: English, Inupiaq
Content advisory: hunting, minimal animal slaughter

The Voice of Greenland (60 min, Warny Mandrup, 2023)

Friday 10:30am — Rasmus Lyberth, Greenland's greatest singer/songwriter, has been celebrated for his distinctive songs for five decades. As Rasmus turns 70, he decides to honor his faithful Greenlandic audience with a magnificent concert in Greenland’s capital Nuuk. The film follows Rasmus in the weeks up to and during the anniversary concert. Along the way, Rasmus tells of a career in music that went from being an unpopular speaker of taboos to something close to a Nordic cult figure. A voice that has not only brought Greenland to the attention of an international audience, but has also contributed to the development of Greenlandic self-perception and identity. A voice that has become, in more ways than one, the Voice of Greenland.

Language: Danish, Greenlandic with English subtitles

The Electric Indian (57 min, Leya Hale, 2024)

Friday 11:40am — The Electric Indian follows Ojibwe hockey legend, Henry Boucha. A standout hockey star from Warroad, Minnesota, Boucha impressed on the ice from the 1969 Minnesota High School Hockey Tournament to the 1972 Olympics to the NHL, but an on-ice assault and injury ended his athletic career that unexpectedly led to a journey of healing and cultural reclamation.

Language: English

Champions of the Golden Valley (81 min, Ben Sturgulewski, 2024)

Friday 12:50pm — Champions of the Golden Valley captures the emergence of a homegrown ski culture in the snow-capped mountains of Afghanistan. The film reveals a breathtaking and seldom-seen side of the country — a remote region where joy, resilience, and community are forged on the slopes. At the heart of this movement is Alishah Farhang, a former Winter Olympic hopeful whose dream of being the first to represent Afghanistan in alpine skiing transforms into a mission to bring his passion for the sport to his homeland. Equipped with handmade wooden skis, young athletes from rival villages come together to compete in a ski mountaineering race like no other. The event becomes a powerful catalyst for unity and hope, showcasing the power of sport to bridge deep divides. And when their world is suddenly upended, Alishah and the athletes must call upon those lessons learned on the slopes.

Language: English, Dari with English subtitles

Bad River (87 min, Mary Mazzio, 2024)

Friday 2:25pm — Bad River chronicles the Wisconsin-based Bad River Band and its ongoing fight for sovereignty, a story which unfolds in a groundbreaking way through a series of shocking revelations, devastating losses, and a powerful legacy of defiance and resilience, which includes a David vs. Goliath battle to save Lake Superior, the largest freshwater resource in America. As Eldred Corbine, a Bad River Tribal Elder declares: “We gotta protect it… die for it, if we have to.”

Language: English
Content advisory: language, mature themes

Beast of the North Woods (27 min, Harrison Reeder, 2025)

Friday 9:15pm — In a rural northern community, a creature born of radioactive fallout has developed a taste for the locals. After the discovery of multiple victims, local sheriff Bob calls in game warden Joe to help identify the creature responsible. With the help of local guide Elaine Skogland they set out into the wilderness in order to put a stop to the beast one way or another. An Urban Mountain production. Fiction

Language: English

The Last Observers (25 min, Maja K. Mikkelsen, 2024)

Saturday 9:00am — Every third hour, day and night, seven days a week, every day of the year, Karin and Lennart, a couple deeply in love for over 40 years, have dedicated their lives to a unique cause. When they first met, there were over 200 manual weather stations in Sweden and thousands worldwide, run by observers who watched and registered the conditions every third hour of each day. In the last decades, automated stations have replaced the observers one by one, but Karin and Lennart remained. In a world pulled toward efficiency that corrupts experience, Karin and Lennart’s story shines as a beacon of rarity and necessity. Told through the eyes of their daughter Maja, we’re invited into an extraordinary love story, where lasting happiness is found in birds, everyday rhythms, and a profound connection with nature. And we’re reminded that one can land “a lousy salary, and a fantastic life.”

Language: Swedish with English subtitles

Black Eyes (18 min, Mateo Arango Guerrero, 2025)

Saturday 9:45am — In Mongolia's timeless Altai Mountains, Kharakoz, a 13-year-old girl, embodies a captivating blend of ancestral traditions and modern influences. As she learns the ancient art of eagle-hunting, the film delves into the powerful ripple effect of passing this sacred knowledge to girls. It showcases how Kharakoz and others like her aren't just preserving, but actively invigorating Kazakh culture in the face of rapid change.

Language: Kazakh with English subtitles

Where the Wind Takes You (12 min, Nate Dodge, 2024)

Saturday 11:40am — Following in his father’s footsteps of polar exploration, captain Peter Schurke takes us up the West coast of Svalbard in a small sailboat, dwarfed by the towering mountains of this arctic archipelago. Embracing the power of the arctic wind just 10 degrees shy of the North Pole, Peter sails North dodging icebergs, exploring remote fjords, and experiencing a close encounter with the ultimate apex predator. Join producer Ryan Rumpca for a Q&A following the film.

Language: English

Homecoming-Máhccan (76 min, Suvi West, Anssi Kömi, 2023)

Saturday 12:30pm — As museums worldwide are increasingly pressured to return cultural property, co-directors Suvi West and Anssi Kömi share a personal and insightful story about the return of artifacts — long held in a museum — to their Sámi homeland. The film is set in the Museum world at this turning point dealing with colonialist history. The National Museum of Finland returned thousands of everyday objects taken from the indigenous Sámi people back to them.

Language: Finnish and Sámi with English subtitles

The Story of Us: Finding Belonging on the Edge of Wilderness (19 min, M Baxley, 2024)

Saturday 3:30pm — Storytelling and transformation through film and discussion

The film explores the power of community set in the northern Minnesota landscape through the lens of two residents who relocated to both Ely and Grand Marais. The story chronicles the transformative experiences made possible by small-town living on the edge of wilderness. The Story of Us reaches far beyond the characters in the film. It is our story. The story of us as individuals in community experiencing shared awe, wonder, conflict, and repair. The film screening will be followed by facilitated dialogue involving the audience and filmmakers that focuses on exploring our shared experiences that make up THE STORY OF US. Mutual Q&A will invite participants to explore and share their own stories of transformation and the ongoing need to work through conflict toward repair in community all within the context of a landscape filled with awe and wonder.

Language: English

The Memory of Darkness, Light, and Ice (58 min, Kathy Kasic, 2024)

After the Featured Speaker (between 8 and 9pm start). If the ice sheet covering Greenland melts, global sea levels would rise 25 feet, profoundly impacting our planet. How, why, and when could this happen? Scientists have recently found soil recovered from below a mile of ice by engineers working at a nuclear-powered Cold War base built inside the ice sheet. That frozen soil holds clues about a time when Greenland’s ice melted and sea level rose around the world. The film takes you to Greenland and lets you meet scientists from around the world as they explain why these new findings make dealing with climate change all the more important.

Language: English

Making Tracks – Alaska on Skis (34 min, Kyle Aramburo, 2022)

Sunday 9:00am — The Bering Strait School District in Western Alaska is the only place in the United States where biathlon and cross country skiing have been a part of the school day for almost 40 years. In the late 1970′s, a time when village schools did not have television, telephones, or gymnasiums, the Bering Strait School District hired John Miles, an educator from the East Coast, to head up a district-wide ski program. While other sports like basketball, wrestling, and volleyball serve very important roles in village life today, cross country skiing was the only school sport then and continues to be a fitting activity for places with snow on the ground eight months of the year, and for a people whose survival traditionally depended on close acquaintance with the land.

Language: English

Frø: Nordic Seed Heroes (2023)

Sunday 9:45am — Frø: Nordic Seed Heroes explores the cultural and environmental importance of seed-saving in Scandinavia. With global seed diversity in sharp decline, this film highlights the dedicated individuals and organizations working to preserve heirloom varieties and restore biodiversity for future generations. From the iconic Svalbard Global Seed Vault to small farms and gardens in Denmark, the film takes viewers on a journey through the heart of Nordic seed-saving efforts. Q&A with director Charly Frisk follows.

Language: English

Sunday 11:15am — Charly Frisk is a documentary filmmaker, climate communicator, and development strategist based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She holds a Master’s of Environmental Management from Yale School of the Environment and a dual degree in Environmental Studies and Peace Studies from the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University. With a background in environmental storytelling and movement-building, Charly uses film, events, and community engagement to spark conversations about climate resilience.

Singing Back the Buffalo (2024)

Filmmaker Tasha Hubbard and Blackfoot Elder Leroy Little Bear explore the return of buffalo to the Great Plains and its significance for Indigenous communities and environmental balance.

Language: English