Nuisance Bear

Invited

This arresting feature from directors Gabriela Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman evokes both awe and suspense as it follows polar bears on their annual migration north through Churchill, Manitoba, the “Polar Bear Capital of the World.” The small town has become largely reliant on ecotourism, prompting the policing, corralling, and exporting of the most problematic bears farther north. Via a tranquilizer gun and a large net suspended from a helicopter, they are unceremoniously deposited outside Arviat, an Inuit community left to defend itself from these unsolicited deliveries. Inuit narrator Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons provides rich context for the increasingly fraught situation, while original music heightens the tension between the tourists, bears, and locals in this simultaneously serene and unnerving portrait of worlds colliding. WM

Directors

Gabriela Osio Vanden, Jack Weisman

Producers

Michael Code, Will N. Miller, Teddy Leifer

Editor

Andres Landau

Cinematographers

Gabriela Osio Vanden, Jack Weisman, Michael Code, Sam Holling, Ian Kerr, Jack Gawthrop

Release Year

2026

Festival Year

2026

Country

United States, Canada

Run Time

90 minutes