In Maniitsoq, Greenland, the US aluminum giant Alcoa Corporation has been planning to build a smelting plant for years. Pictured against immense, isolating landscapes, the people await their plant and with it, the nation's possible first steps towards economic renewal and political sovereignty.

Greenland, officially named Kalaallit Nunaat, is a vast snowy island country, that most Westerners only know as a view from their trans-Atlantic jet window. In the cinematic documentary, Winter’s Yearning, co-directors Larsen and Pilskog showcase the immense, isolating landscapes as well as the rich lives of the self-sufficient Greenlanders, who reside in the fishing village. The film captures a nation’s struggle for economic independence.

Filmed over seven years, Winter’s Yearning focuses on the stories of three Maniitsoq residents during the project’s delays and eventual collapse: Kirsten Kleist Petersen, a young woman who works on the assembly line at a fish processing plant; Gideon Lyberth, a therapist and social worker; and bureaucrat Peter Soren Olsen, the town’s “aluminum coordinator” and the first Greenlander with a master’s degree. Through their uplifting stories the filmmakers track the dreams, lives on hold, and the human capacity to rise again.

This event is a collaboration with POV, the award-winning nonfiction film series on PBS: www.pbs.org/pov