Woods Hole Film Festival 2009

Ice Bears of the Beaufort documents a tragedy unfolding right in front of the camera. With its subjects oblivious to the impending loss of their arctic sanctuary, this film shows a thriving polar bear society on the edge of survival. This non-narrated, high-definition documentary bears witness to Alaska's Beaufort Sea coast as critical polar bear habitat. Five years in the making by a single resident of an Inupiat Eskimo village, Ice Bears of the Beaufort is a color-intense, cinematic family portrait of Alaskan polar bears never before captured on film. The body of the movie chronicles polar bear activity and year-round utilization of the coastal and offshore areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the adjacent Beaufort Sea. This region of the Alaskan arctic is not a blank slate. In the context of a raging world debate, this film exposes the truth about the impact that an offshore oilfield would have as polar bears face climate change and receding polar ice is the greatest threat to their continued existence. The movie’s instrumental score, Glaciation, is a powerful musical mirror reflecting the austere arctic imagery of the film. In an unrivaled marriage of image and music, filmmaker Arthur C. Smith III collaborated with Nashville composer/musician Patrick O’Hearn to create the fullest expression of the depth and subtlety that is the arctic - an arctic eden... a polar bear sanctuary.