Want to star in an 'Arctic Mad Max' film? Kirsten Carthew's looking for you

Picture Mad Max, but set in the Arctic, with an all-woman cast. 

Sounds pretty awesome. And pretty cold. 

That's how filmmaker Kirsten Carthew describes her new feature film Polaris. And she's looking for actors and crew to bring it to life. 

Carthew describes the film as a "dystopian, fantasy thriller," kind of like "Mad Max set in the Arctic, but with a smaller budget."     

The story follows a 10-year old girl who escapes capture from a brutal hunting party intent on killing her mother and their efforts to reunite, she explained. 

"There's a lot of adventure, but it's also action, there's stunts, it's a bigger-scale operation," she said. 

That "bigger scale" includes Aggie, a trained polar bear in Vancouver that will be included in the cast. 

Carthew, the writer-director of the 2017 feature film The Sun at Midnight, says she wanted to make an action movie with a cast of only women because it's something she hadn't seen on the screen before.  

"I thought it would be interesting and entertaining," she said. "I'm not saying this is the first, but I've never seen an all-female cast in an action-type thriller. 

"I'm excited as a director to work with a really cool cast and make something very entertaining and cinematic happen."     

There's a lot of adventure, but it's also action, there's stunts, it's a bigger-scale operation.- Kirsten Carthew

Though there's still a bit of financial work that needs to be done, most of the shooting is set to happen in Whitehorse in February and March, Carthew said. Most of the movie will take place outdoors, with plenty of scenes set in the mountains and out on the land.

"This is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to be in a movie," Carthew said. "We want women of all sizes and shapes, ethnicities, all ages.

"It's really important to the story to be showing that diversity," she said. "We want an eclectic group and we want them to be different from each other." 

Anyone interested in participating can head to polaristhefilm.ca , where they can get in touch with the filmmakers about sending in an audition tape.