★★★★

As a 39-minute documentary short and sequel to 2012’s Oscar-nominated Chasing Ice, we revisit the work of time-lapse nature photographer and scientist James Balog in Chasing Time. Balog’s work in capturing images representing the escalation of climate change in our world was stunningly depicted in the 2012 film. 

Now, director Sarah Keo crafts the sequel with Chasing Ice director Jeff Orlowski-Yang, as Balog has seen fame and notoriety generated from his work and in the years after the film was released. And he has also experienced ongoing skepticism, indifference to his discoveries and a fight with cancer that has only heightened his resilience in the face of overcoming physical obstacles since we last saw Balog on screen.

Poignantly, Chasing Time explores the scientist considering his legacy and the looming retirement from his work, as he discovers more glacial decline and ongoing erosion happening around the world. Concluding a decade-and-a-half of work with his Extreme Ice Survey, Keo and Orlowski-Yang provide a bittersweet coda to the 2012 film where Balog is contemplative and thoughtful on what all of this research will ultimately mean to a world still acting as if climate change is still little more than a political buzzword that stokes argument instead of action.

At the 2024 SIFF Film Festival, Chasing Time was screened with Chasing Ice with Keo and Orlowski-Yang talking about both this updated film and the 2012 predecessor. As a standalone film, Chasing Time is a tempered eulogy of some degree, but also one further clarion call to action that Balog has demanded for decades.

Chasing Time was screened as part of the 50th Seattle International Film Festival.