‘Kivalina’ Trailer: An Alaskan Community Threatened By Climate Change – Berlin

An environmentalist call to arms and examination of a threatened culture, the new documentary Kivalina screened yesterday for buyers and today for the public during the Berlin Film Festival. Kivalina tracks the small Inupiat community living in the eponymous Alaskan town located on a small island north of the Arctic Circle. Threatened by rising seas levels due to climate change, it’s estimated the island will be completely submerged by 2025, and at present the village’s inhabitants lack the resources to relocate. The film tracks several of them as they fight to hold on to their way of life, while placing that struggle in context with the growing scramble for previously inaccessible Arctic resources as the world’s ice caps shrink. Watch the official trailer above and see the poster here.

Directed by Gina Abatemarco with cinematography by Zoe White, it’s produced by Abatemarco and Anne Takahashi, co-produced by Jordana Maurer, and executive produced for Vision Maker Media by Shirley K. Sneve. It will have a film market screening at Cinemaxx Studio 12 tomorrow at 6 PM, with another screening coming Friday at Martin Gropius Bau at 3:30 PM.