Nick Brandestini

Children of the Arctic is a portrait of five Native Alaskan teenagers growing up in Barrow - the northernmost community in the United States. As their climate and culture undergo profound changes, they strive to balance being modern American kids and the inheritors of an endangered way of life.

Nick Brandestini is a filmmaker based in Zurich, Switzerland. His first documentary, Return to Florence (2006), about a small group of young American and British artists studying classical methods at an unconventional school in Florence, screened at numerous film festivals across North America, winning several awards. His next documentary, H.R. Giger's Sanctuary (2007), about the renowned and reclusive artist, H.R. Giger, most famous as the creator of Ridley Scott's “Alien”, was an official selection at the AFI Film Festival in Los Angeles.

"H.R. Giger's Sanctuary" explores the treasures of the H.R. Giger Museum & Giger Bar at the Chateau St. Germain in beautiful Gruyeres, Switzerland. The documentary features an interview and a museum tour with the master of the airbrush, the inventor of "biomechanics", and the creator of the Academy Award winning "Alien". The artist talks openly about his fascination with the morbid, his fame and cult following, his fears and nightmares, and about his visions of the future.

Sapelo is a feature-length documentary film that journeys within a unique American island to tell the story of two young brothers, their adoptive mother, and the last remaining enclave of the Saltwater Geechee people.