“Bare Existence” is the short film shedding light on the vital work of Polar Bears International

Last week, SLEEK—in collaboration with luxury performance brand Canada Goose—screened a short film entitled, Bare Existence, which takes an important look at the work of non-profit organisation, Polar Bears International (PBI). Produced over the course of 7 days in November 2018 by Stept Studios in partnership with Canada Goose and PBI, Bare Existence follows PBI’s members as they live alongside polar bears in Churchill—a town on Hudson Bay in the far north of Manitoba, Canada. Through the course of the film, the viewer learns that while Churchill is the ‘polar bear capital of the world’, its numbers of recorded polar bears are decreasing. Following the camera crew in a Tundra buggy along the shoreline of the bay, the film documents the tumultuous experiences that polar bears are presently encountering due to melting ice—although the bears usually eat seals, the melting ice means that they can no longer get far enough out over the water to catch them. Bare Existence is another stark reminder that it’s possible to reverse the damaging effects of climate change but only if we act rapidly—if not we risk not only our wildlife, but our own safety.

After the screening, SLEEK and Canada Goose held a special panel discussion, chaired by Jan-Michael Quammie, with Dr. Steven Amstrup, an adjunct professor at the University of Wyoming in the United States, who is PBI’s Chief Scientist and appears in the short film, the film’s director Max Lowe (of award-winning documentary Adventure Not War (2017), which was screened at Cannes, Tribeca Film Festival and indie Shorts Film Festival) and Dr. Flavio Lehner, a climate scientist at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. As part of the Berlinale festivities, Canada Goose set up The Art of Film installation at Berlin’s ewerk venue in conjunction with the screening.

See photos from the event below: 

Watch the short film here. Please note that this documentary contains sensitive material, and thus viewer discretion is advised.