Andrew S Allen
Welcome to the furthest corner of the world—the small town of Bethel, Alaska. It’s about the last place you’d expect to find a community based around a basketball tournament. It also happens to be the small town where I was born and raised.
But before you think this film is some sort of favor, you need to know that I Am Yup’ik is part of the top sports series on television, ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, and also recently screened as an official Sundance selection. But that doesn’t capture what makes it great. This is a film you need to see to understand. This is a film that steps beyond the so-called “reality” in the latest History Channel show.
Directors, Daniele Anastasion and Nathan Goon (who shot a previous SOTW pick, The Garden of Steven) follow Byron Nicholai, a high school basketball player for the Nelson Island Islanders, as he and his team compete in the Coastal Conference basketball tournament. As someone who both lived and played basketball here, I should say that the two go hand-in-hand.
“Basketball in this part of Alaska is like high school football in Texas, every person you talk to will have something to say about it.” –Nathan (via Hardwood Paroxysm)
If you’re asking yourself how basketball burrowed its way into such a remote part of the world, the answer actually goes back to the very spirit of the game’s origin. Basketball inventor, James Naismith, created the game to keep his school boys occupied during bad weather. And in Alaska, there’s a lot of bad weather.
Like TMB: Panyee FC and Early Innings, sports are often a reflection of something bigger. Kids here grow up torn between two cultures—the traditional Yup’ik culture of their elders and the invading outside world of the “lower 48” that brings PS4, hip hop, and Blake Griffith. It’s a destabilizing mix leaves many growing up stuck between cultures, in isolation, struggling to find an identity and fuels some of the highest rates of alcoholism, domestic violence, and suicide in the country.
“One of the main reasons to play basketball is either because you love it, or you want to forget about something. Something that’s hurting you inside.” –Byron
Byron cuts right through this turmoil. Amid a culture searching for its identity, He’s someone who seems to know exactly where he stands. In this place, basketball is a rare unifying force that both unites the community and connects them to the outside world. You’re no different than the kid playing on the streets of Harlem. For those few minutes, there is harmony.
“The kids are playing to represent their schools and towns. Nobody is under any illusion of college scholarships or a pro career. Just the pride of their hometown,”
And for the rest of us who are struggling to find our own sense of community—perhaps you’ve moved hundreds of miles away to a strange city, or you’ve given up your faith, or you’ve lost close family. Byron and the Islanders give us hope that culture can survive, it can adapt, and it can create new, stronger communities.