Andrew Okpeaha MacLean

Directing

Biography

Andrew Okpeaha MacLean is a film director and screenwriter creating works in international filmmaking arenas. His films are set in his homeland, shot on location in Barrow, Alaska, starring Iñupiat people. They are among the first feature films produced in the Iñupiaq language. Andrew MacLean’s heritage is woven into how the characters make decisions, relate to each other and in how the plots develop. His work often explores paałaqtautaiññiq, a core value among his people which roughly translates as “non-violence” or “avoidance of conflict.” MacLean’s work examines how an individual and a community reacts to violence, identifying unique cultural responses to extreme situations. The Sundance Institute Native Film Program, a NACF capacity-building awardee, selected his first work, the short film Sikumi to be developed in the Producers Lab. MacLean’s first feature-length film, On the Ice, screened at the Sundance Film Festival and at select theaters throughout the country. With the support of an NACF Artist Fellowship in Film, MacLean began work on adapting the Iñuit story The Children of the Northern Lights (2013) for film. In the well-known story, a hunter sacrifices his own life to ensure the survival of the spirits of the Aurora Borealis. MacLean set the original legend in outer space, on a moon circling a distant planet. The story becomes an allegory for the choices we must make to ensure the survival of our own fragile world. (Native Arts & Cultures Foundation)

Known For

6.7

This film is an intimate portrayal of pioneering filmmaker Merata Mita told through the eyes of her children. Using hours of archive footage, some never before seen, her youngest child and director Hepi Mita discovers the filmmaker he never knew and shares the mother he lost, with the world.

Merata: How Mum Decolonised the Screen

2019Movie

6.3

In Barrow, Alaska, teenagers Qalli and Aivaaq find their bond tested when a seal-hunting trip goes wrong.

On the Ice

2011Movie

N/A

For thousands of years, traditional Inuit sports have been vital for survival within the unforgiving Arctic. Acrobatic and explosive, these ancestral games evolved to strengthen mind, body and spirit within the community. Following four modern Inuit athletes reveals their unique relationship to the games as they compete across the North. As unprecedented change sweeps across their traditional lands, their stories illuminate the importance of the games today.

Games of the North

2011Movie

5.3

An Inuit hunter drives his dog team out on the frozen Arctic Ocean in search of seals, but instead, bears witness to murder. In the microscopic communities of Arctic Alaska there is no anonymity -- the hunter knows both the victim and the murderer. The murderer, claiming self-defense and desperate to avoid punishment, tries to persuade his friend to forget what he has seen, and help dispose of the body. The hunter is forced to navigate the uneasy morality of honoring the body and memory of one friend and destroying the life of another.