'Nuisance Bear' Gabriela Osio Vanden/Courtesy Sundance Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment There's no shortage of captivating nature docs in which advanced 21st century audiovisual technology allows for breathtakingly close images of magnificent creatures in the wild. But when nonfiction films go beyond the scope of observing animals in their threatened natural habitats to examine humanity's troubled relationship with them, the results can be uniquely affecting. Werner Herzog's recent Ghost Elephants is a good example, rendered poetic by its marriage of conservation biology with inquiring philosophical contemplation. Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Nuisance Bear does something similar by looking at the compromised conditions for polar bears in the Canadian Arctic alongside the heavy costs of Western commercial settlement to the Inuit people who have co-existed with the majestic predators for 4,000 years. Related Stories Hollywood Flashback When Redford and Hackman Hit the Slopes for 'Downhill Racer' Movies THR Film Critics Pick the Best of Sundance 2026 Nuisance Bear The Bottom Line Watch and bear witness. Venue: Sundance Film Festival (U.S. Documentary Competition)Narrator: Mike Tunalaaq GibbonsDirectors: Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden 1 hour 29 minutes Expanding their wordless 2021 short of the same name to compact feature length, co-directors Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden have made a doc of lingering beauty, sadness, insight and even unexpected humor. While the short film's absence of dialogue made it unusually direct and immersive, the longer version retains that bear's-eye-view immediacy alongside first-hand access to Indigenous beliefs, deepening our knowledge across the human-animal spectrum while remaining more subtly interpretive than informational. Part of that is the effective choice of confining English-language input to what we overhear from wildlife and conservation officers, guides and tourists. The closest thing to a talking head is the Inuktitut narration threaded throughout from Mike Tunalaaq Gibbons, a community elder from the town of Arviat on the western shore of Hudson Bay, who passed away last year in his early 80s. At the risk of sounding patronizing about infrequently heard Indigenous languages, Tunalaaq's mellifluous rumble and soft-spoken reflections on tradition, change and devastating personal loss give the doc a distinctively soulful voice. He speaks of interconnectedness, of there being no separation between ourselves and nature, of the ancient understanding that bears and humans are equal, both species powerful and dangerous. This spiritual side is amplified by the brilliant Cristóbal Tapia de Veer's astonishing score. As he did on the first three seasons of The White Lotus, the composer folds together vigorous percussive fantasias with evocative cultural accents to reflect the setting and mood, the music contributing greatly to the movie's sensory impact. Tunalaaq recounts a story that is painful to tell, and while it's light on details, it nonetheless prompts a sharp intake of breath. But it's one of many instances in his thoughtful narration that points up cultural differences, ways of seeing that alter our perspective - whether on the benefits of conservation or the categorically negative impact of hunting. Even the film's title opens itself up to questioning. Is it the polar bears - their annual northbound journey slowed by climate change, which causes delays to the formation of their icy hunting platforms - who are the nuisance when they come sniffing around human settlements for food? Or is the nuisance the settlers, colonial traders who built the town of Churchill, Manitoba - "Polar Bear Capital of the World" - directly on the bears' ancient migratory path? Weisman and Osio Vanden's short film was shot in Churchill, and the small subarctic town rewards further exploration. While polar bears were routinely shot when the Fort Churchill U.S.-Canadian military base was operating, from 1942 to 1980, they are now protected by law. But when bears are traumatized by the ordeal of being trapped, caged, tagged for identification, monitored and transported long distances before being released, you start to wonder how much downside comes with the good of animal protection programs. An extended version of a nail-biting sequence shown in the short, which is both spectacular and distressing, follows the relocation of a "nuisance bear," drugged up and bundled in a rope net dangled from a helicopter for the duration of the disorienting journey north. The part that's hardest to watch is what immediately follows, with the still-tranquilized bear splayed out on the ground, powerless as wildlife officials bolt a radio transmitter to its ear and paint a large green spot on its upper bac