It is -40 degrees and pitch dark in a small subarctic town. The phone rings. You bike to work up hill 9 km in temperatures where steel cracks.

A team of adventurous scientists and filmmakers, aboard the Canadian sailing ship SEDNA IV document the impact of climate change in Antarctica. On the remote, windswept islands of South Georgia they encounter a spectacular gatherings of penguins, albatross and fur seals who depend on huge swarms of shrimp-like zooplankton called krill, which are the driving force of the vast Southern Ocean food web. On, Bird Island, only four hectares, researchers discover that climate changes, starting half a world away, are having a devastating impact on the krill-eating predators. Fur seals and gentoo penguins are telling us that changes to ice formation and temperatures in Antarctica are at the heart of the problem. Islands at the Edge bears witness to a changing world.

À l’extrême Sud de notre planète, la vie semble déconnectée du reste du monde. Sur les îles sub-antarctiques ou encore sur les rives du grand continent de glace, les humains ne sont que des prédateurs de passage. Là-bas, manchots, phoques, baleines et albatros sont rois. Leur adaptation au climat extrême leur permet de profiter de ces zones d’abondance, où l’Homme n’a pas encore trouvé le moyen de tout exploiter. Dernier continent vierge de la planète, l’Antarctique ne s’offre qu’à ceux et celles qui le méritent. Pendant une année, l’équipage du SEDNA IV naviguera sur les mers les plus hostiles de la planète, pour témoigner des nouvelles menaces qui guettent ce secteur méconnu de notre planète. Au rythme des saisons, nous assisterons aux grands cycles de cette vie australe, riche et spectaculaire. En se questionnant sur le fonctionnement de cet écosystème unique, nous découvrirons toute sa fragilité.

Arctic Son is a generational gap story with an unusual backdrop. Old Crow a tiny town, 80 miles north of the Arctic Circle, population 300. Stanley Sr. is a hunter; a rugged man of the land steeped in native traditions who becomes suddenly reunited with his son after almost 20 years apart. They share a name and a bloodline, but for the moment that is all they share because their worlds and their lifestyles differ respectfully.

Seattle-raised Stanley Jr. is absorbed in hip hop music, video games, and drunken nights filled with debauchery. With their time together Stanley Sr., hopes to instil in his son a sense of balance and groundedness, drawing upon what he knows best — his history and the land. Embedded within this moving father–son story is a larger exploration of the complex relationship between tradition and urban culture; old and young; nature and pop culture; addiction and independence; and the bigger quest we all embark on at one point or another in our lives.

For five years, a Spanish team of scientists and adventurers explored the seas and peaks of Antarctica, including the most devastated and coldest point on earth: the south pole, a point never before reached by man. Filmed in extremely harsh conditions this doc is sure to inspire.

Part environmental expose and part art film, this powerful crossover piece flies in the face of conventional documentary making methods. In her visually stunning picture, artist and filmmaker Mortimer leads us on a hypnotic journey to the high arctic. Against this wintry backdrop she follows research into the far-reaching effects of chemicals on the environment, and considers the extent of their consequences.

Featuring testimonies from leading environmental scientists and women from the Inuit community, Invisible tells the story of how man-made chemicals are building up in our bodies and being passed from mother to child. Mortimer uses dramatic imagery to create a fascinating portrait of contemporary Inuit life. The result is a thought-provoking documentary that questions how we live in the world today.

In Edmonton Alberta, Zacharias Kunuk, internationally renowned Inuit director meets Kiviaq, Canada's first Inuit lawyer. A former Golden Gloves boxing champion, a City Alderman, Kiviaq was also the only Inuk ever to play on the Edmonton Eskimos CFL football team. He arrived in the city as a young boy and was told to shed his Inuit identity. Now dying of cancer, he is focused on the last and most important fight of his life - suing the Canadian government to secure for the Inuit the same official status as all the other aboriginal peoples of Canada. Through the efforts of this extraordinary individual, we witness Zacharias Kunuk experience new ways to stand up for his own rights as an Inuk in this exceptional political documentary.

Northern Lapland, homeland to Northern Europe’s indigenous Saami people, contains Western Europe’s largest wilderness area, currently at the heart of unresolved Saami land claims. In cold Arctic winters, old-growth forests provide arboreal hanging lichen, the lifeline for free-grazing reindeer, who are the basis of Saami herding culture. Meanwhile, the state-owned forest company Metsähallitus is destroying important grazing forests, vital to the reindeer. In 2005, conflicts between Saami herders and government interests flared when the herders started an international campaign to save the forest from logging. It escalated as forestry workers, supported by Metsähallitus, set up a harassment camp next to a Greenpeace Forest Rescue Station in the disputed forests. Last Yoik exposes an emotional struggle for a dying way of life.

Jussi, seems lost. A young Saami man in his twenties, he has watched his family sell their reindeer herd against his wishes. Having lived in Lapland his entire life he resents his brother’s decision to move south, abandoning the traditional Saami ways. When his brother comes home for a visit, Jussi is confronted once more with the choices now facing the community and his family. What will he decide? A quirky, bittersweet drama from Lapland, sure to resonate with Canadian audiences.

When explorer Robert Peary sojourned to the Pole he not only left a historic legacy but a personal one with tragic implications for the people whose lives he had altered forever. Prize of the Pole follows the sombre contemporary journey of one of Peary’s Inuit descendants who attempts to reconcile the motives and actions of his white ancestor’s quest for glory in an imperial age. This unique film intersects the lives of three men over time and space revealing their own attempts to come to terms with the opposing cultural ties within them. A profoundly moving multi-textured and layered story leaves one confounded by the racist attitudes displayed and the lives destroyed in the wake of the Prize of the Pole.

The Inuit call ice Saattuq and its melting. In the High Arctic, climate change is not a debate. It’s a visceral fact of life transforming the lives of its people, its landscape and wildlife. Thin Ice provides a comprehensive overview of the impact of climate change on our Polar region. The film also presents the broader discussion over sovereignty and control of the arctic waters while melting ice presents new challenges and new perspectives on our vision of the north.

In just over 50 years, the Inuit have gone from the igloo to the internet- a profound transformation that would shock any society. Ullumi provides an unvarnished glimpse at a community dealing with pressures from within and from without against the backdrop of renewed debate over the future status of the Arctic world. Co-directors Evie Mark, Tunu Napartuk, Lena and Qajaaq Ellsworth explore the major challenges facing their families, their communities and their culture.

The Woodsmen come into the forest to cut down trees, but in the process they encounter a rather strange mythical force. A light-hearted short film about the relationship between men and those who dwell the forest.

From its headwaters in Canada to its vast delta on the Bering Sea, the Yukon River is the second-longest river in North America, flowing 2300 miles. Mining, manufacturing, military encampments and human settlement have all contributed to its polluted state. But instead of finger-pointing and blaming the polluters of their territories, the native people who live along its embankment from Canada and Alaska have joined forces taking leadership and responsibility for protecting their own lands, waters, animals and fish. They have formed the largest international treaty organization in the world. Yukon Circles follows their remarkable story.