This article was commissioned by Filmpodium in Zurich, Switzerland for a program called “Zacharias Kunuk & The Inuit Style of Filmmaking.” It was first published in the January 1 – February 15, 2023 edition of their self-titled magazine.

Odds are if you have ever heard of an Inuk filmmaker, you have heard the name Zacharias Kunuk. And if you have heard of Zacharias Kunuk, odds also are that you have heard of Atanarjuat |The Fast Runner (2001). This historical epic is rightly celebrated as a watershed moment for global Indigenous cinema and in a 2015 poll by the Toronto International Film Festival was named the greatest Canadian film ever made. Writing on the film shortly after its release, Margaret Atwood quoted a BBC critic’s assessment of the film: “If Homer had been given a video camera this is what he would have done”. This gives some idea of the scope of the film and the importance of the filmmaker for audiences unfamiliar with Inuit cinema or culture. Kunuk is an Inuk from the Canadian territory of Nunavut. “Atanarjuat” is a traditional Inuit story from that territory. Kunuk’s accomplishment was to make that story authentic for an international, film-watching audience.

If you have never heard of Zacharias Kunuk, Atanarjuat, or Inuit generally, some more context will be helpful before you watch this program. Inuit are the related Indigenous peoples from Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), Inuit Nunangat (a region of northern Canada made up of the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut), northern Alaska and Chukotka, Russia. Across all four countries, many different Inuit languages and dialects are spoken, many of which are not mutually intelligible. In several of those languages and dialects, the word “Inuit” translates as “people.” Inuk is one person. Inuuk is two people. Inuit is anything more than two people.

Inuit have been involved in moviemaking for a very long time. Southern audiences will likely be familiar with work like Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (celebrating its centenary this year), Asen Balikci, Guy Mary-Rousselière and Quentin Brown’s Netsilik Eskimo series (1967) or the dozens of films Jørgen Roos made about Kalaallit Nunaat between 1950 and 1997. But if we look in closer detail, the work that is often celebrated by southerners, or, qallunaat, as we are referred to in some Inuit languages, hides a much deeper story. Inuit were performing on camera as early as 1901. The first feature film written by an Inuk, the now lost Way of the Eskimo, was released in 1911. Inuit languages were featured in some of the earliest “talkies” like W.S. Van Dyke’s Eskimo (1933) and Friedrich Dalsheim’s Palos Brudefærd | The Wedding of Palo (1934). Our cultural insistence on focussing on the contributions of people credited as producers, directors and those that fall “above-the-line” in the film industry obscures the work of countless Inuit over the past one hundred years. As we are now beginning to understand, Nanook would not have been Nanook if it were not for the contributions of its star, Allakariallak, and the community of Inukjuak, Nunavik. Van Dyke and Dalsheim’s films would not have been possible if not for the work of people like Ray Agnaqsiaq Wise and Knud Rasmussen. One of the many things that distinguish Zacharias Kunuk is that he is first Inuk internationally recognized for his work “above-the-line”. 

Kunuk was born in 1957 on Kapuivik in the Canadian territory of Nunavut (a part of Inuit Nunagnat). Beginning his artistic career as a carver, in 1981 he sold three sculptures to subsidize the purchase of a video camera and began teaching himself how to shoot and edit. He started working as a producer for the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation in Igloolik, Nunavut in 1983. While there, he began producing work under the company name, Isuma, which was formally established in 1990 by Kunuk, Paul Apak Angilirq, Norman Cohn and the late Pauloosie Qulitalik. Many of Isuma’s earliest productions like Qaggiq | Gathering Place (1989) and Nunaqpa | Going Inland (1991) feel like documentary films but are instead meticulous recreations of traditional Inuit activities from the recent past. The tendency to read Isuma films as documentary would ultimately lead Kunuk to qualify Atanarjuat (2001) as “a powerful drama, not a documentary”. After winning the 2001 Camera d’Or at Cannes for the film, Kunuk rose to international prominence. His work screens regularly at international film festivals and in 2019, Isuma represented Canada in the Venice Biennale. Kunuk is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of Nunavut.  

The Kunuk component of this program spans six screenings, three of which are features. These films are emblematic of Kunuk’s concerns as a filmmaker: his commitment to traditional Inuit stories and Inuit history, his deep respect for and nuanced understanding of what it means to be on the land, and his mastery of documentary convention. There is, of course, Atanarjuat (2001), the pre-European contact epic tale of love, murder and revenge set at the dawn of the first millennium in Nunavut. The film has often been recognized for its long takes and expansive, duo-chromatic landscapes, features that remain as striking today as they did twenty years ago. Directed by Kunuk and Natar Ungalaaq (the actor that performed Atanarjuat), Maliglutit | Searchers (2016) is a re-imagining of John Ford’s 1945 film, The Searchers. The impact of Ford’s film on western cinema is well known. Kunuk and Ungalaaq’s re-telling reveals its impact on Kunuk. “John Wayne was our hero,” he remarked in a 2017 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. When he moved to Igloolik at the age of nine, “they had a little community hall where they would show 16mm movies. A lot of it was cowboys and Indians and John Wayne.” The third feature, One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (2019), tells the story of how in 1961, the titular Piugattuk was approached by a government agent asking him to give up his traditional lifestyle. The long shot lengths and dialogue relayed through a translator interpreting for Piugattuk and the government agent focus our attention on the banality of colonization. The film was included in Isuma’s program for the 2019 Venice Biennale.

In Canada, Isuma’s work allies with Arnait Video Productions, which promotes the culture and voices of Inuit women. Established in Igloolik, Nunavut in 1991 by Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Madeline Ivalu, Susan Avingaq, Carol Kunnuk and Atuat Akkitirq, many Arnait members have written and performed in Isuma films and Isuma has produced several of Arnait’s. Arnait’s early work demonstrates the same commitments to Inuit history, storytelling, and documentary as Isuma but in recent years has shifted towards narrative films that position female Inuit experience and knowledge in a cross-cultural context. In a larger, circumpolar Inuit world that includes Kalaallit Nunaat, Alaska and Russia, Kunuk and Isuma are a little more difficult to situate. “We learned more about our own culture from Atanarjuat than we ever learned in school,” suggested Kalaaleq filmmaker Inuk Silis Høegh in a 2017 interview. But there remains “too much lack of contact. I haven’t thought about our film community here being a part of others in the Inuit countries that much.” In Kalaallit Nunaat, national film development organizations like FILM.GL have been driving a new wave drama, documentary and horror films that address the contemporary experience of colonialism. In form and content, these films look and feel different from the work of Kunuk and Isuma but come from a similar ethos and political commitment. These films tell Inuit stories.

Our program is intended to show you the breadth of contemporary circumpolar Inuit cinema. We hope you enjoy it. Quyana. Nakummek. Qujanaq. Thank-you.