Over the course of five years, Grantees Andrew Burton and Micheal Kirby Smith investigated how climate change is impacting U.S. citizens in real time by documenting the lives of residents of Newtok, AK.
Their film, Newtok, uses verite scenes and sit down interviews to document the community’s efforts to relocate their village due to thawing permafrost, intensifying storms, an encroaching river and a largely indifferent federal government.
They amassed more than 270 days of footage in the process of creating our film, demonstrating both the anxiety climate change is causing U.S. citizens, as well as the strength and resilience of the community in the face of a Herculean task.
Newtok was also funded by the Sundance Institute, Kendeda Fund, Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, U.C. Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Fellowship, Investigative Studios, Duct Tape Then Beer and Patagonia. It will be distributed globally in 2022.
One Indigenous village’s fight to keep their community intact hinges on the political will of those in power – The Fund for Investigative Journalism
One Indigenous village’s fight to keep their community intact hinges on the political will of those in power
