Gather in the Anchorage Museum auditorium for a visual and sonic exploration of the diverse lands, waters, and creatures across Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuges. Sustain Music & Nature collaborated with Alaska Region U.S. Fish and Wildlife on a project meant to build broader awareness of Alaska's National Wildlife Refuges. Using existing footage provided by Alaska USFWS, Sustain brought together four U.S. based musicians – Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band, Board Member: Sustain Music & Nature), Akie Bermiss (Lake Street Dive), Matt Douglas (The Mountain Goats), and Derry deBorja (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit) – to compose an original score for a 10 minute film. After a long stretch of community isolation and limitations, this film envisions a time of collective re-shaping of how we experience distances, community, and nature. (Members of the project will discuss the creative process and music’s connection to nature). The Film will be followed by two short films produced by USFWS and a discussion. Free.

Sustain Music & Nature, a national nonprofit that makes music a force for nature, partnered with Alaska’s USFWS to create Refuge Alaska, a 10 minute film featuring stunning videography set to evocative music composed by four U.S. based independent artists: Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band, Board Member - Sustain Music & Nature), Akie Bermiss (Lake Street Dive), Matt Douglas (The Mountain Goats), and Derry deBorja (Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit).

Unable to travel or gather during the height of the pandemic, the composer-musicians met across time and space to virtually connect with northern places most had never visited in person. An assemblage of video captured in previous years by multiple videographers became the inspiration for an artwork of music and film. Four chapters take the audience through the air over vast landscapes, across the land with close floral and faunal encounters, beneath the water with fish and marine mammals, and finally into the winged world of birds.

Alaska’s 16 National Wildlife Refuges span from the edges of the high Arctic to the outer islands of the Aleutians, and provide some of the best places in the world for wildlife and people to thrive. These are the homelands of Alaska Native peoples from time immemorial, and we honor their centuries of stewardship and deep connections with these lands."

First Friday Film & Music: Refuge Alaska Film Debut & Musical Composer Talk