{"id":453580,"date":"2026-02-02T12:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T12:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/453580\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T12:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T12:35:10","slug":"sundance-grand-jury-prize-winning-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/453580\/","title":{"rendered":"Sundance Grand Jury Prize-Winning Doc"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere\u2019s no shortage of captivating nature docs in which advanced 21st century audiovisual technology allows for breathtakingly close images of magnificent creatures in the wild. But when nonfiction films go beyond the scope of observing animals in their threatened natural habitats to examine humanity\u2019s troubled relationship with them, the results can be uniquely affecting. Werner Herzog\u2019s recent Ghost Elephants<\/a> is a good example, rendered poetic by its marriage of conservation biology with inquiring philosophical contemplation.<\/p>\n

\n\tSundance<\/a> Grand Jury Prize winner Nuisance Bear does something similar by looking at the compromised conditions for polar bears in the Canadian Arctic alongside the heavy costs of Western commercial settlement to the Inuit people who have co-existed with the majestic predators for 4,000 years.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNuisance Bear\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tWatch and bear witness.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Documentary Competition)
Narrator: Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons
Directors: Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 29 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tExpanding their wordless 2021 short of the same name to compact feature length, co-directors Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden have made a doc of lingering beauty, sadness, insight and even unexpected humor. While the short film\u2019s absence of dialogue made it unusually direct and immersive, the longer version retains that bear\u2019s-eye-view immediacy alongside first-hand access to Indigenous beliefs, deepening our knowledge across the human-animal spectrum while remaining more subtly interpretive than informational.<\/p>\n

\n\tPart of that is the effective choice of confining English-language input to what we overhear from wildlife and conservation officers, guides and tourists. The closest thing to a talking head is the Inuktitut narration threaded throughout from Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons, a community elder from the town of Arviat on the western shore of Hudson Bay, who passed away last year in his early 80s.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the risk of sounding patronizing about infrequently heard Indigenous languages, Tunalaaq\u2019s mellifluous rumble and soft-spoken reflections on tradition, change and devastating personal loss give the doc a distinctively soulful voice. He speaks of interconnectedness, of there being no separation between ourselves and nature, of the ancient understanding that bears and humans are equal, both species powerful and dangerous.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis spiritual side is amplified by the brilliant Crist\u00f3bal Tapia de Veer\u2019s astonishing score. As he did on the first three seasons of The White Lotus<\/a>, the composer folds together vigorous percussive fantasias with evocative cultural accents to reflect the setting and mood, the music contributing greatly to the movie\u2019s sensory impact.<\/p>\n

\n\tTunalaaq recounts a story that is painful to tell, and while it\u2019s light on details, it nonetheless prompts a sharp intake of breath. But it\u2019s one of many instances in his thoughtful narration that points up cultural differences, ways of seeing that alter our perspective \u2014 whether on the benefits of conservation or the categorically negative impact of hunting.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven the film\u2019s title opens itself up to questioning. Is it the polar bears \u2014 their annual northbound journey slowed by climate change, which causes delays to the formation of their icy hunting platforms \u2014 who are the nuisance when they come sniffing around human settlements for food? Or is the nuisance the settlers, colonial traders who built the town of Churchill, Manitoba \u2014 \u201cPolar Bear Capital of the World\u201d \u2014 directly on the bears\u2019 ancient migratory path?<\/p>\n

\n\tWeisman and Osio Vanden\u2019s short film was shot in Churchill, and the small subarctic town rewards further exploration. While polar bears were routinely shot when the Fort Churchill U.S.-Canadian military base was operating, from 1942 to 1980, they are now protected by law. But when bears are traumatized by the ordeal of being trapped, caged, tagged for identification, monitored and transported long distances before being released, you start to wonder how much downside comes with the good of animal protection programs.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn extended version of a nail-biting sequence shown in the short, which is both spectacular and distressing, follows the relocation of a \u201cnuisance bear,\u201d drugged up and bundled in a rope net dangled from a helicopter for the duration of the disorienting journey north. The part that\u2019s hardest to watch is what immediately follows, with the still-tranquilized bear splayed out on the ground, powerless as wildlife officials bolt a radio transmitter to its ear and paint a large green spot on its upper back for aerial identification.<\/p>\n

\n\tTunalaaq speculates on the psychological damage this inflicts on a polar bear. \u201cThe bear is a visitor from the past navigating a maze of the present,\u201d he says, pointing out that the world in which bears and humans kept a safe distance from each other no longer exists.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe longer bears spend in environments with humans, the more they lose their fear. Tunalaaq maintains that exposure to human noise \u2014 clanking industrial sounds, trucks, tour vehicles and the bikes, jeeps, choppers and pest-control cracker-shot rifles used to shoo bears away from towns \u2014 is causing the animals to lose their hearing. The number of adult bears trapped and prematurely separated from their cubs leads to unpredictable behavior patterns in the young.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe ecotourism invasion yields images that are almost surreal, with huge \u201ctundra buggies\u201d\u2014 outsize, boxy buses on massive all-terrain wheels, with viewing platforms built on the back \u2014 rolling across the horizon in fleets. The confused looks on the bears\u2019 faces as they plod on among tour vehicles disgorging photographers requires only that image, no words, to be saddening.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe unfair advantage of humans in this equation yields a hilarious moment of triumph when an ursine hero warily approaches a large cylindrical trap with a bait hanging at the far end. The bear puts a paw inside to test the structure and then hesitates, stepping around to inspect the sides and back of the contraption before making a quick dash in to grab the meat and getting out just as the trapdoor is coming down. Bravo!<\/p>\n

\n\tWeisman and Osio Vanden, who head a team of six cinematographers, open with the obligatory cuteness overload of polar bear cubs nestled into their sleeping mother\u2019s flanks for warmth or gamboling along behind her. There\u2019s also beautiful footage of foxes, of stonking big crows right out of Poe and caribou with sprawling antlers that are like contemporary art sculptures.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut those enrapturing images are deceptive; Nuisance Bear is not that kind of straightforward, awestruck nature doc. The sight of bears ambling across the landscape or poking around garbage dumps for food grows more melancholy the more we know about their violated environment.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Western conservationists for decades have sounded the alarm about a species edging toward extinction, the Inuits dispute this, maintaining that population numbers are up, based on the influx each year of bears from Churchill to Arviat, around 200 miles north. Hunting polar bears for food and income from the sale of hides is an Inuit cultural tradition. The practice is now strictly regulated by the Federal government, with names drawn by lottery to participate in the brief windows when restrictions are lifted.<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore regulation was introduced, the Inuits adjusted their hunt numbers up or down, depending on population estimates for the previous season. Nobody watching this film is going to love the idea of animals being harvested, but Nuisance Bear makes a convincing argument for population control.<\/p>\n

\n\tMany of the points touched on in the doc, particularly those that pit Western thinking against Indigenous belief, stubbornly refuse to fit neatly into black or white answers. The most poignant points outline the losses to Inuit culture and the breakdown of traditional family networks caused by Western influences. Nothing says cultural contamination like an Indigenous kid dressed as Darth Vader for Halloween.<\/p>\n

\n\tTunalaaq says that for generations now, the semi-nomadic Inuits have been told that their knowledge is unscientific and worthless, and that their lives would be easier if they stayed in one place and followed white authority rules. He says that resulted in shame, and a reluctance to share stories, breaking the connection between elders and their heirs. Tunalaaq ruefully reflects that had he not refrained from sharing knowledge with his son, a family tragedy might have been averted.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe affinity between polar bears and Inuits \u2014 who long ago believed bears could turn into humans and back again \u2014 emerges organically without being pushed. The filmmakers seem to suggest that they share a similar sense of freedoms removed, of mournfulness for a simpler past.<\/p>\n

\n\tSome might roll their eyes at the anthropomorphic aspect of \u201creading\u201d a polar bear\u2019s thoughts. But a shot of a bear sitting on a clifftop gazing out over Hudson Bay while waiting for the waters to freeze \u2014 flashes of seals, beluga whales and other prey shuffling through its head along with images of traps, cages and vehicles in pursuit \u2014 is one of the more heartrending movie images in recent memory.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdmittedly, I\u2019m a sentimental softie for anything depicting mopey animals, but the sight of a weary polar bear lumbering across the tundra with a faded patch of green dye on its back seems like the saddest visual in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no shortage of captivating nature docs in which advanced 21st century audiovisual technology allows for breathtakingly close…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,2065,13958,134,4695,344,100407,225978,227049],"class_list":["post-453580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-canada","tag-documentaries","tag-entertainment","tag-festivals","tag-movies","tag-sundance","tag-sundance-2026","tag-sundance-film-festival-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=453580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/453580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=453580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=453580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=453580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}