Established amidst the frozen glaciers fields of Barrow, Alaska, Andrew Okpeaha MacLean’s debut feature film explores the type of conscience in the aftermath of any fatal accident that almost tears apart a close-knit group of native villagers. When Qalli (Josiah Patkotak) in addition to Aivaaq (Frank Qutuq Irelan) return from the seal hunt with the news that their friend Adam (John Miller) fell into the sea, the entire town mobilizes to get the missing youth. As days pass without sign of James, Qalli’s father becomes increasingly suspicious of his son’s involvement within the incident, leading to increased anxiety between Qalli and Aivaaq that eventually explodes in a dramatic showdown on the particular treacherous ice fields. Part nail-biting thriller, part meditation on the nature of guilt, Okpeaha’s film features beautiful performances that propel an equally engrossing narrative which keeps the audience in its thrall till the final scene. With a portion of the dialogue spoken in this native I?upiaq, On the Ice introduces the audiences to some culture not often viewed while still managing to supply a thrilling narrative of uncommon power and sophistication.
Andrew Okpeaha MacLean can be an I?upiaq filmmaker who was created and raised in Ak. He founded the nation’s primary theatre performing plays exclusively in I?upiat, the language of the indigenous people from the region. He was subsequently artistic director of the theatre in Seattle for 36 months. His film Sikumi premiered for the 2008 Sundance Film Pageant, where it won the Jury Prize simply speaking Filmmaking. On the Ice will be his first narrative feature based on his award-winning short.
In On The Glaciers, a teenager in the arctic native community can be killed and his person is submerged below the ice. When the corpse returns to the surface, so does the secret of his death.
In Barrow, 515 km north of the Arctic Circle, swaggering Aivaaq (Frank Qutuq Irelan) has dreams to be cool and important. But his girlfriend is pregnant and he has no livelihood, and he fights with rival James (David Miller) when his or her peers mock him.
Heading out on a seal hunt within the ice beyond their city with Qalli (Josiah Patkotak), another friend, Aivaaq fights again, and James is killed. It is an accident, but the young adult males hide his body underneath the ice and return to town. Eventually the corpse reappears and the fact remains reconstructed.
On The Ice will be striking in its portrait of youth within the world’s northernmost city, who share much with kids a comparative age anywhere – vulnerability, vanity, and aimlessness, as drugs find their method to the remote North.
Yet the specific location of On the Ice in a vast place without vegetation implies that secrets don’t stay hidden for long in the community of a few thousand that dispenses justice in its own way.
The director, who founded a movie group in remote Barrow, gets solid performances outside of his mostly non-professional forged. Frank Qutuq Irelan will be cocky as Aivaaq, the scrappy would-be thug who fights to defend his “street” reputation inside a town without a flat road. Josiah Patkotak plays the actual shy Qalli, who’s haunted by his role from the death on the ice. The suspense builds deftly as an increasing number of the townspeople sense that haunting.
