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Director Tim Hines, left, talks to actor JR Bourne on the set of "Chronic Town," which was filmed in Fairbanks last winter.

Alaska is a long way from the glitz of the Sundance Film Festival, but Fairbanks was well represented at this year’s celebration of independent filmmaking.

The Utah-based festival, which wrapped on Jan. 27, prominently featured a pair of films with local ties this year.

“Chronic Town,” a tale of Fairbanks’ seedy side that was shot here last year, was one of 121 feature films that earned a spot in the festival. “Sikumi,” which was written and directed by West Valley High School graduate Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, was one of two films awarded the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking.

“It was definitely a surprise,” MacLean said of the award. “This is the first festival it’s been to, and I wasn’t really sure how people were going to respond to it.”

Getting a slot at Sundance is a boon for aspiring filmmakers. Robert Redford launched the festival in 1978 as a showcase for independent movies, and it’s become a star-filled market for Hollywood deal makers.

Maya Salganek, a University of Alaska Fairbanks theater professor and one of the producers of “Chronic Town,” made the trip to Park City, Utah, to see the first public screening of the movie. She said the little town buzzes with almost indescribable energy when Sundance is in session.

“The streets are wall-to-wall people, shoulder to shoulder, with a line of cars down the middle,” Salganek said. “And it’s that way all the time.”

It’s an odd backdrop for a pair of low-key Alaska-set movies, but they both packed in the crowds at screenings there.

“Sikumi,” which translates to “On the Ice,” was one of more than 5,000 short films that were submitted for Sundance, a list that was slashed to just 83 selected for screenings.

The film has an elegantly simple premise. A lone hunter, trekking along the ice, sees one man murder another. The rest of the 15-minute film details the interaction between the witness and the killer. “Sikumi,” which MacLean filmed for his master’s thesis at New York University, is shot entirely in Inupiaq, with English subtitles.

A movie set on the Arctic Ocean ice pack may have seemed exotic to Sundance audiences, but MacLean said it felt a little like his backyard. The 1990 West Valley graduate split his childhood between Fairbanks and Barrow.

The familiar vibe included recruiting three friends — Brad Weyiouanna, Tony Bryant and Olemaun Rexford — to play the roles in the movie.

“None of them are trained actors, they’re just people I thought would be good,” he said. “They ended up being great.”

“Sikumi” was filmed about two miles off the Barrow coast for two weeks during March 2006, with a week of follow-up shots a year later. Not surprisingly, the setting offered a few challenges.

The fake blood used in the movie, a concoction of chocolate syrup and corn syrup, kept freezing in the minus 10 degree weather. And the amateur actors had some unique distractions to help cut through any on-set nervousness.

“You have to keep an eye out for polar bears,” said Weyiouanna, a 1997 West Valley graduate whose character witnesses the killing. “There’s other things on your mind than just the camera.”

An unconventional setting also helped “Chronic Town” stand out at Sundance. The screenplay was written by Michael Hines, who received an English degree from UAF, and follows a taxi driver’s journey through a cold, gray Fairbanks winter. Tom Hines, Michael’s brother, was born in Fairbanks in 1969 and directed the film.

For anyone wanting to get a glimpse of Fairbanks, there are plenty of opportunities. Scenes from a bar and strip club were shot at The Boatel and Reflections, respectively, and many of the secondary actors and extras are locals.

“It was just really fun to see everybody,” Salganek said. “They were mostly just background, but it was a lot of fun.”

Salganek said she had some initial reservations about getting involved in “Chronic Town,” since the grim screenplay includes serious drug and alcohol abuse, a suicidal protagonist and even a trip to a mental hospital. She was worried that Fairbanks would be cast in a bad light, and hadn’t even seen a final cut until premiere night.

Salganek was pleased to discover a successful black comedy, and said it was well-received by audiences at Sundance.

“On screen it’s a funny film,” she said. “I just give all the credit to Tom Hines as a director to have pulled that off.”

The next step for each film is still uncertain. MacLean is planning to enter “Sikumi” in other film festivals, and may try distributing it in Europe, where short films are more commercially viable. “Chronic Town” is being shopped to distributors, but Salganek said there are plans to hold a local screening when its future becomes less cloudy.

Evan Harris, a UAF theater student who worked as an intern on the “Chronic Town” set, traveled to Utah to see the premiere. He’s excited at the thought that it could make its way back to a Fairbanks big screen.

“The whole process and opportunity was a real adventure,” Harris said. “It was a privilege to be part of it.”