‘Nuisance Bear’: Tourists And Polar Bears Get Very Close In Oscar-Shortlisted Film
deadline.comPolar bears are both a welcome and an unwelcome sight in the town of Churchill, Manitoba. They’re welcome in the sense that each year the ursine creatures draw tourists to the area eager to see the bears as they migrate through Churchill on their way to winter feeding grounds on the Hudson Bay.
And the tourists pour a lot of money into the local economy. On the other hand, the bears create issues — at least ones that linger too long, attracted by the aroma of food from the local dump.
It is the latter kind of animal that occupies the frame in the Oscar-shortlisted documentary Nuisance Bear. The short directed by Jack Weisman and Gabriela Osio Vanden is streaming at the NewYorker.com and on the New Yorker’s YouTube channel. “There’s a lot of films that get made in Churchill,” notes Weisman. “We realized that there was this missing component in the stories that were being captured there… It became obvious through watching those and watching the filmmakers, that there was an opportunity to do something just completely different from the traditional approach.” Nuisance Bear begins with slow motion footage of waves crashing along a frigid shoreline, then moves to a slow tracking shot across a snowy landscape.
A magnificent polar bear comes into view, striding in slo-mo, occasionally lifting its nose to inhale a snoutful of frosty air.
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