Midnight Kids
2019 · 24m · France
Directed by Maxence Vassilyevitch
Genres: coming-of-age, documentary
Tones: contemplative, whimsical
In Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), the northernmost town in the United States, young Inuit burst out under the midnight sun and turn their claustrophobic ice-bound horizon into a playground.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects a solemn, survival-focused doc about Arctic isolation, and instead Vassilyevitch just... lets kids be radiant under endless daylight—subverting the whole melancholy-indigeneity thing that usually sells these stories.
A formally considered piece that situates itself squarely in the observational documentary tradition while resisting its typical gravitas; the midnight sun becomes both literal subject and formal constraint, structuring the film's visual and temporal logic.
The decision to shoot in near-perpetual daylight and treat it not as hardship but as liberation—that one choice reframes the entire relationship between landscape and youth, transforming what could be a grim survival narrative into something genuinely playful.