Hi—I’m Kurt Hunter. I make films and soundscapes about real people and real stories—the kind that bloom in quiet places and deserve a bigger microphone. I grew up in Southeast Alaska, where the rainforest meets the sea. You made community through shared experiences, through stories, and through the simple, powerful act of listening. That’s where I learned to pay attention: to voices, to rooms, to weather on a tin roof, the crackle of a fire in a wood stove and to the small details that make a story feel true. Over the years, I’ve worn a lot of hats—radio and audio production, photography, a few mailrooms, systems administration, and a long run as a mobile DJ (I still love cueing the perfect track at the perfect moment). The thread running through it all is creativity: piecing together the unexpected to make something meaningful. I’ve spent decades shaping stories with sound. Now, I’m pairing that craft with a camera—so the voices I care about can be seen as clearly as they’re heard. These days, I bring a sound-first sensibility into documentary filmmaking. I still edit with my ears—listening for texture, pacing, and emotional resonance—while building a visual language that lets those stories live and breathe on screen. When I’m not in production, you’ll find me tackling home projects, chasing sunsets with a camera, experimenting in my (oversized) closet studio, spending time with family, or writing late into the night with a cup of coffee within reach. The bar I set for my work: be useful, be human, be heard. Because in a world full of noise, authentic voices—real voices—matter more than ever. I’m here to make sure they’re heard, remembered, and never lost.

On That Threshold: At sixty-one, many people are drawing retirement plans—sketching out how to slow down, how to step back. I find myself instead at a creative crossroad. A liminal space where the familiar and the unknown meet.

For decades, I’ve worked as an IT professional—a steady path that paid the bills and carried me forward. But the deeper truth is this: I’ve always been orbiting something else. Stories. Sound. Film. Photography. Creative work that’s pulled at me like a tide I could feel long before I understood it.

Now I find myself standing between two worlds.

On one side: structure, stability—the familiar rhythm of a day job that, over time, has begun to feel less like a destination and more like a waystation.

On the other: a leap into something less certain, but far more alive. Work that carries risk, yes—but also meaning.

Projects like my documentary on Raven Radio—the remarkable public radio station serving Central Southeast Alaska—sit at the heart of that transition. It’s a story rooted in memory, community, and place, but it also reaches forward—exploring not just where radio has been, but where it’s going, and why it still matters.

Some people call these pursuits side hustles. I think of them as side quests. Paths that lead off the main road into unfamiliar terrain—where the reward isn’t just something different, it’s the journey, the next move and finding meaning.

Because the goal isn’t simply to fund the work—or even to have the work sustain itself. The goal is to create something that carries weight. Something I can stand behind. Something that reminds people there is still value in shared stories— in work that pulls us beyond ourselves into spaces that are immersive, human, and alive with possibility.

This is the nature of liminality: A crossing point where the past no longer fits, and the future hasn’t fully taken shape. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s also fertile ground. To stand here is to recognize that change isn’t a loss—it’s an opening. That the in-between isn’t empty. It’s a stage. And it’s waiting.