A Plea for Refuge – The Film …

We are very proud to present the film A Plea For Refuge, premiering at the Banff Mountain Film Festival on November 2nd.
Jeff Shapiro and Cody Tuttle, both members of Team Kortel, journeyed through one of the last true wildernesses on the North American continent: the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which remains wild and genuinely untamed by human development.
In 1987, 1.56 million acres of coastal plain (Section 1002 of ANWR) were earmarked for potential oil and gas exploration. In August, plans were approved to auction leases in this pristine ecosystem. This threatens native wildlife, a delicate Arctic landscape already strained by climate change, the calving grounds of the Porcupine caribou herd, and impacts the indigenous cultures of the Gwich’in and Iñupiaq peoples of Canada and Arctic Alaska—forever altering one of North America's last untouched public lands.
To learn more, help protect ANWR, and find screening details, visit www.apleaforrefuge.com

Film synopsis:

Two adventurer friends, Jeff Shapiro and Cody Tuttle, set out to traverse one of the last raw, genuinely untouched wilderness areas in North America. Attempting a paragliding crossing of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska's eastern Brooks Range above the Arctic Circle, they forge an intimate, visceral connection with the urgent necessity to fiercely protect it. Along their odyssey, their perspectives on friendship, calculated risk, and the profound meaning of “wilderness” evolve, forging lifelong memories—lives that are finite, yet deeply worth sharing through these stories to ensure this extraordinary sanctuary remains preserved for generations to come.