And it turned out to be a really useful tool in allowing us to share with our future collaborators what our visual style was, what our approach was for this type of filmmaking.

Yeah, we always wanted to make this feature film that included both communities, but we didn't have the resources to do it.

And so the short film was actually sort of an unintended but necessary step to making the longer film.

And so from our first trip, we knew about all these complexities and we wanted to try to include it in a single film because it was so shocking to us.

You know, our idea of polar bears is what most people have, which is planet Earth and National Geographic.

And, you know, the polar bears exist in a faraway place.

land and they're wasting away on icebergs.

Let's talk about Mike.

But tell us about his important role in the film as narrator and the voice, if you will, of indigenous culture.

Yeah.

One of our producers, Michael Code, another Mike, is Saisi Dene.

And his involvement in the project, I think, really influenced the perspective and sort of pushed us to center indigenous voices, especially because they've historically been left out of stories around bears and wildlife generally.

And working with Mike Dunala Gibbons, the narrator, was a beautiful gift.

We didn't anticipate that he would be the narrator of our film.

You know, the loss of his son was deeply traumatic to him and his family and to the community.

And so, yeah, like Jack said, it was such a gift to to make those discoveries together with him and really is the heart and soul of the film.