For thousands of years, polar bears have migrated along the shores of Hudson Bay in northern Canada. Today, that ancient rhythm collides with a human world of tourism, surveillance, and control. Nuisance Bear immerses viewers in the experience of a polar bear forced to navigate tourists, wildlife officers, and hunters as climate change delays the freeze and pushes bears closer to human settlements. The film observes bears that are constantly monitored, photographed, and redirected. In tracing this uneasy coexistence, Nuisance Bear becomes a meditation on how humans manage, commodify, and redefine wildlife—overturning the conventions of the nature documentary and reframing animals not as spectacle, but as active agents in a rapidly changing world.
USA, Canada, UK 2026, '89
DIRECTOR: Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden
CAMERA: Gabriela Osio Vanden, Jack Weisman, Sam Holling, Michael Code, Ian Kerr, Jack Gawthrop
MONTAGE: Andres Landau
MUSIC: Cristobal Tapia de Veer
PRODUCERS: Michael Code, Will N. Miller, Teddy Leifer, Jack Weisman, Gabriela Osio Vanden
PRODUCTION: Documist
FESTIVALS & AWARDS:
Sundance FF
Thessaloniki FF
Jack Weisman
Jack Weisman aspires to make visually striking and original films that defy easy classification. His works of creative nonfiction have premiered at many festivals including Sundance, SXSW, TIFF, and IDFA. Jack’s breakout short, Nuisance Bear (2022), co-directed with Gabriela Osio Vanden, offers a gripping, wordless study of polar bears navigating human-dominated landscapes in Churchill, Manitoba. The film received widespread acclaim, earning a spot on the 95th Academy Award Shortlist, two Emmy nominations, and top honors at Cinema Eye Honors, Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards, and IDA Documentary Awards. Jack’s debut feature will premiere in 2026 and is produced by A24, Documist, and Rise Films. Weisman is a co-founder of Documist, an Emmy and Peabody-winning production company based in NYC and Toronto. He served as an executive producer on The Territory (2022). The Territory premiered at Sundance, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award and a Special Jury Prize, and is now available on Disney+ through National Geographic Documentary Films.