Utuqaq

The scouts

Okay, the ice-as-narrator gimmick *could* be pretentious, but Radivojević actually commits to it—the sensibility shifts from human concern to something genuinely alien, which most filmmakers would botch or abandon halfway through.

A formally disciplined essay film that inherits from the structural documentary tradition while pushing toward lyric—the conceit of ice-narration situates it in conversation with both Vigo and contemporary experimental nonfiction, and the restraint in execution proves the idea.

The sound design decision to make the ice's 'voice' not melodic but granular and physical—you hear the material itself, not an interpretation—is what transforms what could've been conceptual cuteness into something that actually holds its own weight.

Reviews

Acting as her own cinematographer, Radivojević counterpoints elegant and abstract patterns across sweeping planes of ice with more human-scale documentation of the work of four researchers drilling ice cores in the region's freezing temperatures. The narration — in Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic) by Aviaja Lyberth — is from the point of the view of the ice itself, evoking the earth's geological memory as it confronts efforts of the researchers working in the moment to learn about what is being lost amidst climate change.

Festivals

• Camden International Film Festival 2020, World Premiere