ANCHORAGE, AK 10/13/2025 – On Sunday, November 16, at 4:00 PM, in
recognition of November as Alaska Native / American Indian Heritage
Month, the Alaska Moving Image Preservation Association (AMIPA) and
Doyon Foundation will co-present a fundraiser screening of Spirit of
the Wind (1979) at Anchorage’s Bear Tooth TheatrePub.
Spirit of the Wind is the story of George Attla – Alaska Native dog
musher. Shot on location in Fairbanks, the film follows Attla from
his life as a young Athabascan trapper in rural Alaska, to a TB
diagnosis that meant years in sanitoriums in Tanana and Sitka.
Returning home, he faces the challenges of a fused knee and cross
cultural conflict, but goes on to become a champion sprint dog musher
– the “Huslia Hustler” of Alaska legend.
Spirit of the Wind is the winner of numerous awards including the
Grand Prize at the 1979 Sundance Film Festival, and was an official
Un Certain Regard selection at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film was directed by Ralph Liddle, who had a new digital cinema
package (DCP, the digital format that is the industry standard for
distributing films in the digital projection era) engineered, last
year. Liddle and John Logue, the cinematographer on the film, first
saw the new DCP projected at a film festival in late 2024, and were
amazed at how good it looked. Liddle says it hasn’t looked better
since it was first screened in 1979. The film staff at the Bear Tooth
TheaterPub, who have had a chance to review the new DCP in their
facility, agree that it looks and sounds great.
Tickets are on sale now, online and at the Bear Tooth TheatrePub box
office. General Admission $15. A portion of the proceeds will benefit
the AMIPA and the Doyon Foundation, 501(c)(3) non-profit
organizations. All of AMIPA’s proceeds from this event will be added
to an endowment fund for the program, established at the Alaska
Community Foundation, through the vision and generosity of AMIPA’s
late board member, Lael Morgan.
https://beartooththeatre.net/
For additional information about the event, please contact:
Kevin Tripp, AMIPA
kevin@amipa.org
907.786.4980