Polaris comes home to the North on Northwestel Community TV

It’s the year 2144. You’re surrounded by a frigid, snow-blanketed wasteland, doing your best to outrun a roaming warband in a post-collapse world. Roads are gone. Sound carries differently. The horizon stretches out, and the world feels both bigger and quieter at the same time. It is a place that demands resilience and survival. That feeling sits at the heart of Polaris, the visually striking, Yukon-shot, all-female eco-action fantasy coming to Northwestel Community TV in Whitehorse and Yellowknife.

For the filmmakers behind Polaris, bringing the film back north for its Community TV premiere is more than another screening. It is a homecoming.

A northern story, from the very beginning

Set in a frozen future, young Sumi survives in the wild with only a polar bear for family. Polaris blends survival, mythology, and environmental storytelling into something unlike anything else in Canadian cinema. It is spare and poetic, deeply rooted in the relationship between people and the land.

From the start, this was a story from the North, told by creators from the North, both in setting and in spirit. Most of the film was shot outdoors in the Canadian Subarctic, on frozen lakes, snow-covered plains, and deep in the Yukon wilderness.

Leading the project were director Kirsten Carthew, originally from the Northwest Territories, and the Yukon-based producer Max Fraser. Their northern roots shaped both the story on screen and how they brought the film to life.

Filmed under once-in-a-generation conditions

Production took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, in the winter of 2021, a time when travel restrictions, health protocols, and isolation measures were part of everyday life.

For a film shot largely outdoors in remote northern locations, these conditions added new layers of complexity to an already demanding shoot. Cast and crew worked in extreme cold, far from major centres, while adapting to evolving safety requirements that made even basic logistics more challenging than usual.

For an independent production, it required careful coordination, flexibility, and a deep level of trust among the team, qualities that echo the resilience reflected in the story itself.

From northern landscapes to national screens

After its release in 2022, Polaris quickly found an audience beyond the North. The film opened the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal and later screened at the Whistler Film Festival, where it won Best Cinematography.

The film went on to reach viewers across Canada through its national streaming release on Crave, bringing its stark visuals and unconventional storytelling to a wider audience. Closer to home, northern audiences had the opportunity to experience Polaris on the big screen through screenings at the Yukon Theatre with the Yukon Film Society.

Now, with its broadcast on Northwestel Community TV, the film completes a full circle, returning to the communities and landscapes that shaped it.

Northwestel’s early support

Long before Polaris reached festival audiences or national streaming platforms, it found early support closer to home.

Northwestel was the first broadcaster to support the project, helping enable its initial financing and giving the filmmakers the confidence to pursue an ambitious vision rooted in the North. That early commitment helped bring a bold northern story to life, one created by northern talent and filmed on northern land.

Years later, Polaris is now returning to Northwestel Community TV, not only as a celebrated Canadian film, but as one that Northwestel helped set in motion from the very beginning.

A true northern homecoming

At its core, Polaris is a story about survival, courage, and finding direction in an uncertain world by following a single point of light.

From a winter shoot in the Yukon during the pandemic, to international festivals, to national streaming, and now back to northern screens, Polaris has travelled a remarkable path.

Now, it’s coming home.

Premiering Friday, May 29, watch Polaris on Northwestel Community TV in Whitehorse and Yellowknife and experience a northern story, made by northern creators, and shared with the communities that inspired it.