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From the Arctic to Korea: Melting North, Changing South

This short film connects the Haenyeo diver communities of Korea with Indigenous Arctic communities, revealing shared relationships with the ocean across vastly different environments. Through culture, fishing and food gathering, tradition, and lived experience, the film explores how climate change is reshaping both worlds—and the deep knowledge systems that persist in the face of change.

  • Jamie Francis
    Creative Director/DP
  • Scott Highleyman
    Executive Producer
  • Patricia Chambers
    Associate Producer
  • Tim McLaughlin
    Editor
  • Drew Jordan
    Motion Graphics
  • Paran Ocean Citizens Science Center
    Translation
  • Cyrus Harris
    Key Cast
  • Hilu Tagoona
    Key Cast
  • Wáahlaal Gidaag
    Key Cast
  • Lee Jeong Joon
    Key Cast
  • Myeong Hyo
    Key Cast
  • Yoon Sang HOON
    Key Cast
  • Ocean Conservancy
    Production Partners
  • Oceans North
    Production Partners
  • Paran Ocean Citizens Science Center
    Production Partners
  • Always Build Studios
    Additional Footage
  • Paran Ocean Citizens Science Center
    Additional Footage
  • Patricia Chambers
    Additional Footage
  • Lee Jeong-Joon
    Additional Footage
  • Oceans 5
    Patron
  • Ocean Resilience & Climate Alliance
    Patron
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short, Other
  • Runtime:
    3 minutes 25 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 28, 2025
  • Production Budget:
    10,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    South Korea
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Our Ocean 2025 Conference
    Busan
    South Korea
    April 30, 2025
    Originally screened at the Our Ocean Conference in Busan, South Korea. Limited public exposure online.
Director Biography

Jamie Francis is an American cinematographer and director of photography whose work spans documentary film, television, and more than two decades of visual journalism. Before moving into motion picture work, he spent years as a newspaper photojournalist in places including North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, and Oregon, learning to pay attention to people, light, weather, timing, and the quiet moments that often say the most.

A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill journalism program, Francis began his career in still photography before transitioning into filmmaking in 2013 with Blue Chalk Media.

He later served as director of photography on the HBO documentary series Growing Floret, filmed in Washington’s Skagit Valley.

His work has taken him across all seven continents, filming with everything from old film cameras to drones and handheld digital systems. Whether documenting Arctic communities, remote landscapes, or everyday human moments, Francis approaches filmmaking with the instincts of a journalist: stay curious, stay patient, and don’t force the story to become something it isn’t.

He is especially interested in the rare moments when people forget the camera is there and simply exist within a scene. Much of his work is guided by the belief that filmmaking is less about controlling reality and more about noticing it.

Outside of filmmaking, Francis has increasingly turned his attention toward design, craftsmanship, and the idea of building small spaces by hand, interests that continue to shape both his creative life and the stories he chooses to tell.

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Director Statement

Are there moments in your life when all the noise stops, when the only thing that matters is right now?

I sure hope so.

I’ve appreciated the jobs of my youth—farming tobacco, potatoes, and Christmas trees; working for my parents as a stock boy and cashier; delivering furniture. As fun and as functional as these jobs were, my mind wandered while doing them.

As it still would today.

Since college, I’ve made my living with a camera. Plastic cameras, film cameras, underwater cameras, drones, digital cameras, timelapse rigs—camera systems so big and heavy they need a truck to support them.

This work has taken me around the world, to all seven continents. It has taken me to backyards two doors away. It has taken me to places I never thought I would go and allowed me to see things I never thought I would see.

Every now and then, something happens in front of the camera that I can’t explain—something so beautiful, or tragic, or surprising that it changes me.

My mind settles into the present.

The noise stops.

No wondering what’s for supper or where my sunglasses are. No wandering mind.

I cherish these moments. They are a relationship with work that I never expected when I was younger, just trying to get through a day.

I also understand that relationships take more than one.

I can’t speak for the people or the places in these images. But I can say thank you. I can say that I hope you see your dignity in these moments, and that you feel seen in the sharing of your story.

If I look deeper at what motivates me, it is the opportunity to communicate a feeling through images—not to tell someone what to think, but to create space for them to feel.

Work has taught me that these moments are fleeting, and we should race to catch them. Life has taught me that they can be cultivated, but not manufactured.