Everyone loves an underdog story. Sports movies are full of inspirational tales about the unlikely player or team that rises to achieve greatness, with swelling music and compelling stories to keep things moving along. “Alaskan Nets” scores in all of these and more, all as a documentary.

The film is one of the few movies this year to have an in-person screening at the 2021 BendFilm Festival. You can see it 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Tower Theatre in Bend, or stream it online on the festival’s website through Oct. 17.

Director Jeff Harasimowicz takes the audience up to the Tsimshian home in Alaska’s last federal Native American Reservation, Metlakatla, in the remote southeastern part of the state.

The community here has two passions — fishing and high school basketball.

Fishing is how many make money since the sawmill closed, but the industry has suffered with the changing climate. Many high school students work with their families through the summer catching fish, then diving for more lucrative species such as geoducks. The film puts a special emphasis on diving and the dangers it has to anyone who dips below the surface. With such a short window to dive and good weather being harder to come by in the open months, the practice is incredibly hazardous. As in similar small communities, high schoolers often will continue to help their families out on the boats well into the school year.

With uncertainty in their vital industry, Metlakatla pins its hopes on the high school basketball team. Locals are obsessed with the sport and talk constantly about the time they won the state championship back in the 1980s — the first and last time they did so. And every year, they hope to win it back.

The film follows the 2017-18 team’s lead-up to the state championship game, focusing mainly on two players, cousins Danny Marsden and DJ King. Danny is the star player who seems effortlessly good at the game, while the more hot-tempered DJ has to practice a bit more to rise to the same level.

With insights from community members, coach T.J. Scott, teachers and the other players, the film moves chronologically from the end of the fishing season through practice, games, semi-finals and, finally, the championship game.

Every year, the community clings to the hope that the team will come out on top. And the pressure for the students (and coach) to succeed is high. For them, the idea is that a championship win will make things better in the community, that everything will be better.

Through community support and dogged determination, the team overcomes tragedies, long travels (sometimes lasting days) across the state, playing their best and trying to bring that trophy home again after so many years.

The film builds up the relationships and the pressure to succeed well, making the viewer feel anxious along with the players as the big game slowly arrives. There are a lot of heartaches, too, and the documentary handles them relatively well.

“Alaskan Nets” does something special by telling the story of a whole community through the stories of its obsession with basketball and its reliance on fishing — the good and the bad of both. And it’s incredible to watch an entire town show up in the bleachers for game after game chanting for their boys in blue and yellow: “Wayi wah” — let’s go.

“Alaskan Nets”

120 minutes

No MPA rating

3.5 stars