Uksuum Cauyai: The Drums of Winter

Uksuum Cauyai: Drums of Winter, also referred to only as Drums of Winter, is a 1988 ethnographic documentary on the culture of the Yup'ik Eskimo people in Emmonak, Alaska, a village on the shore of the Bering Sea. The film follows the Yup'ik people in an attempt to capture what remains of their traditional dances and the potlatch ceremony. There is an atmosphere of a people losing touch with its traditions after many years of religious and government intervention. The film was produced through a "community-collaborative process" in which the subjects of the documentary had significant input as to the film's content and presentation. As a result, the film features conversations with individual Yup'ik in place of "the voice-over commentary by an unseen narrator that destroys the cinematic integrity of so many so-called ethnographic films".