Alaskan Nets Wins “Audience Choice Award” at Santa Barbara Film Festival

“Alaskan Nets,” a world premiere documentary, was the winner of the SBIFF’s Audience Award in April 2021. Here’s a nice little write up by RogerEbert.com:

Directed by Jeff Harasimowicz and executive produced by Chris Pratt, “Alaskan Nets” may be formulaic, but it’s a thoroughly winning formula. It is set in Metlakatla, Alaska’s last Native reserve. Here on Annette Island, life is nothing but nets: fishing, which for generations has been the livelihood of the residents, and basketball nets, which is the life blood of the reserve, its own “Friday Night Lights” as one resident remarks.

Harasimowicz chronicles the 2017-2018 season in “the Met” as the high school basketball team, the Chiefs, led by cousins Danny Marsden and DJ King, pursues its first state title since 1984. This is “Hoosiers” territory, and this true story of an economically devastated community, its culture, and a quest for hope is a natural for an eventual Hollywood treatment.