Storyville - Season 15 Episode 14 Last Days of the Arctic: Capturing the Faces of the North
Ragnar Axelsson, known as Rax, is a photograher for Iceland's largest newspaper. This documentary follows him on his life's mission, to capture the human faces of climate change by photographing the vanishing lifestyles of the people of the north.
Rax is among the most celebrated photographers in the world and his series of photographs, Faces of the North, is a living document of the dying cultures of the far northern reaches of the planet, mainly Icelandic farmers, fishermen and the great hunters of Greenland.
'It was really only one photograph that started me off,' he says. 'An old man in a rowing boat and his dog on a skerry. I thought to myself, these men are vanishing. If I don't photograph them now, no one will remember them and no one will know that they ever existed.'
Rax spent his childhood summers on an isolated farm on the southern coast of Iceland, where the farmers lived off of the land as countless generations had before them. As a child he was enraptured by the landscape and the interactions between man and nature.
Twenty-five years ago, his fascination with people who try to survive in extreme circumstances took him from Iceland to Greenland - a place which has continually inspired him to return.
His photo essays of the hunters of Greenland are legendary. Rax could well have been a hunter himself - and we watch him as he stalks his images and strikes at the opportune moment. Fascinated by stories of half-forgotten people who have adapted to unspeakably harsh conditions, Rax is now documenting them as they cope with extreme changes to those conditions as the result of climate change.
Last Days of the Arctic is a celebration of the photographer and his subjects, an elegy for a disappearing landscape and the people who inhabit it.
First Air Date: Nov 15, 1997
Last Air date: Jun 18, 2024
Season: 28 Season
Episode: 660 Episode
Runtime: 85 minutes
IMDb: 7.57/10 by 7.00 users
Popularity: 27.891
Language: English
Keyword : current affairs
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Pablo's Hippos
Sex, Death and the Gods
Meet the Climate Sceptics
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Afghan Cricket Club - Out of the Ashes
The Man Who Fooled the Nazis
Kidult - Marathon Boy
Kidult: P-Star Rising
Kidult: Cuban Punch-Up - The Boys who Fought for Castro
China's Bleak House
Innocent! Paco & the Struggle for Justice
Knocking on Heaven's Door
Last Days of the Arctic: Capturing the Faces of the North
Pol Pot's Executioner: Welcome to Hell
Amnesty! When They Are All Free
Fight to Save the World: Sergio
Prosecutor
Law of the Dragon - Husband and Wife
Law of the Dragon - Love Thy Neighbour
Law of the Dragon - Death of an Only Child
Law of the Dragon - Mother and Son
Murder on a Sunday Morning
The Thin Blue Line
The Billion Dollar Art Heist
Client 9 - The Call Girl and the Governor
Deadline: The New York Times
Riding Giants
Bobby Fischer: Genius and Madman
The Interrupters - How to Stop a Riot
Inside Job
Barbados at the Races - Bajan Born and Bred
Barbados at the Races - The Jockey's Prayer
Barbados at the Races - Run Cat Run!
Barbados at the Races - The Favourite