UAF filmmaker’s work selected for international film festival

September 23, 2016

A short film produced by University of Alaska Fairbanks faculty member Maya Salganek has been selected to appear in the imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in Toronto later this fall.

The film, "Feels Good," was written and directed by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean of Barrow, Alaska. Salganek served as executive producer and UAF students in the Film Reel Alaska Mentoring Experience program worked as crew.

"Feels Good" tells the story of Kelvin, played by Jake Waid, a Tlingit man brought to the big city of Fairbanks in pursuit of work. After his car breaks down he is picked up by Russ (Allan Hayton), a Gwich’in man who is looking for his runaway daughter (Quannah Potts).

This is Salganek’s first time representing UAF filmmakers at the imagineNATIVE festival. Salganek is an assistant professor of film/media arts in the UAF Department of Theatre and Film. and founding director of the UAF Film Reel Alaska Mentoring Experience, also known as FRAME. She has produced features, documentary, and educational films, and curates film festivals while teaching film production and showcasing indigenous storytellers. She was co-producer of the feature film “Chronic Town” (Sundance Official Selection 2008), and producer of narrative features in 2012’s “alaskaLand.” Through FRAME she produced “Mining for Ruby” (2014) and “Feels Good.” Salganek is currently filming a short narrative, "Bodies of Water," written by former student Adrina Knutson.

The imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival draws thousands of film makers and spectators each year. The nonprofit organization that runs the festival seeks to prompt a greater understanding of indigenous peoples and cultures through the presentation of contemporary indigenous-made media art.

The theatre and film department is part of the UAF College of Liberal Arts, which the largest of UAF’s academic units and includes arts, humanities, social sciences and language disciplines.

ON THE WEB: www.imaginenative.org/imaginenative-announces-film-and-video-lineup
https://www.uaf.edu/theatrefilm/

ADDITIONAL CONTACTS: Nannette Pierson, nnpierson@alaska.edu, 907-474-6590.