March 2011
 Andrew Okpeaha MacLean (Iñupiat) is a director and playwright, born and raised in Barrow, Alaska. In 2008 he was named a United States Artists Rasmuson Fellow in Media and was featured in Filmmaker magazine’s "25 New Faces of Independent Film." He is also a recipient of the John H. Johnson Film Award and the 2007-2008 Riese Award, among other honors.
MacLean's first feature film, On the Ice, premiered in the U.S. Feature competition in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. While in development on this film, MacLean was a Fellow in Sundance Institute’s 2009 Directors Lab and Screenwriters Lab, and was subsequently named the 2009 George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation Directors Lab Fellow. In 2010 he was one of the first recipients of a Sundance Institute Cinereach Feature Film Fellowship, offered to Lab alumni whose projects push the boundaries of conventional storytelling. A drama set in Barrow, Alaska, in which an act of violence erupts on a seal hunt, On the Ice is based on MacLean's short film, Sikumi, which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking. It went on to win awards at other festivals around the world and was short-listed for the 2009 Academy Awards. His other short films include Natchiliagniaqtuguk Aapagalu/Seal Hunting with Dad, which premiered at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and was named one of the ten best short films at the festival by IndieWire.
MacLean also writes and directs plays. He is the co-founder of the Iñupiat Theatre in Barrow, and he co-founded and served as the artistic director of Stickfigure Productions, a theater company in Seattle. He received a BA in theater from the University of Washington. MacLean received his MFA in film production from New York University, where he won numerous competitive awards, including the Martin E. Segal Prize for Film, the King Award for Screenwriting, the Wasserman Award for Directing and the Clive Davis Award for Excellence in Music in Film. MacLean lives in New York with his wife, producer Cara Marcous.
"My philosophy of working in independent film is to tell
compelling stories about interesting and real people. My Iñupiaq
culture is a part of the films I make because it is a part of
who I am."
Screened by NMAI
Image credit: Andrew
Okpeaha MacLean - courtesy of the filmmaker
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