How Ata­nar­ju­at brought Inu­it cin­e­ma to the world stage

The Inu­it ham­let of Igloo­lik (pop­u­la­tion: 2,000) is sit­u­at­ed on a remote island in north­ern Cana­da, which has a freez­ing polar cli­mate typ­i­cal of most of the Arc­tic Cir­cle. Though small, the island is a cul­tur­al hub for a cir­cus troupe, an arts fes­ti­val, and one of the most excit­ing film scenes of the 21^st cen­tu­ry. The most renowned film to have emerged from this scene is Ata­nar­ju­at: The Fast Run­ner, released 15 years ago to wide­spread acclaim and the recip­i­ent of the Cam­era d’Or at the 2001 Cannes film festival.

Ata­nar­ju­at is direc­tor Zacharias Kunuk’s adap­ta­tion of an epic Inu­it leg­end about jeal­ousy, evil spir­its, revenge, broth­er­hood and redemp­tion. Set rough­ly 2,000 years ago, the film is unlike any­thing else that world cin­e­ma has to offer, and in order to real­ly appre­ci­ate its impact it’s impor­tant to take a clos­er look at the town that cre­at­ed it.

First­ly, there is a sen­so­ry rich­ness that stems direct­ly from the film’s stun­ning Arc­tic set­ting. The crunch of snow under­foot, the glint of low sun­light on ice, and the emp­ty white hori­zon all pro­vide a unique visu­al frame­work for the sto­ry. Kunuk’s film­mak­ing style is strik­ing, too. His cam­era stays close to the actors, cap­tur­ing every detail of their faces, and every­day rit­u­als are shown in their entire­ty to demon­strate the Inu­it people’s astound­ing meth­ods of sur­vival in this unfor­giv­ing landscape.

It’s also worth not­ing that the film was made by Isuma, a pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny set up with the sole aim of fos­ter­ing indige­nous com­mu­ni­ty cin­e­ma in Igloo­lik and beyond. All of the film’s cos­tumes, props and sets were made local­ly. The sto­ry had been passed down oral­ly for gen­er­a­tions, so it was cru­cial to con­sult Inu­it elders to ful­ly under­stand it, as well as to flesh out the fin­er details of nomadic Inu­it life. Dur­ing pro­duc­tion, Kunuk took his crew out onto the tun­dra to cre­ate an open com­mu­ni­ty atmos­phere. Even the cater­ing depart­ment was a team of hunters, who would bring back ani­mals caught on the ice.

All of this auto-ethno­graph­ic back­ground work makes for a film steeped in authen­tic­i­ty and intrigue. The Arc­tic, a place stereo­typed and feared by most non-Inu­it peo­ple, is demys­ti­fied so that its inhab­i­tants can tell a mean­ing­ful sto­ry in their own words. More­over, Isuma’s grass­roots approach has a ten­den­cy to spread. Not only have they changed the eco­nom­ic land­scape of iso­lat­ed north­ern com­mu­ni­ties, but they also host an online por­tal for indige­nous sto­ry­telling that boasts media from all over the world in more than 80 languages.

After its ini­tial release, some con­fused review­ers referred to Ata­nar­ju­at as a doc­u­men­tary. This speaks to the gen­er­al igno­rance around Arc­tic Cana­da, but also to the film’s faith­ful atten­tion to tra­di­tion­al Inu­it prac­tices. Indeed, the sense of ​‘real­ness’ is what stands out most about the film, not least in a piv­otal action sequence in which the title char­ac­ter runs for his life across sheets of ice com­plete­ly naked. It’s a riv­et­ing set piece and an inge­nious­ly cin­e­mat­ic way to bring the loca­tion to life.

This year, Kunuk pre­miered his lat­est film Maliglu­tit (Searchers) at the Toron­to Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val. It takes its name from John Ford’s famous west­ern, but Kunuk has not com­pro­mised his sin­gu­lar vision for a Hol­ly­wood ver­sion of indige­nous life. He is con­tin­u­ing the move­ment that Ata­nar­ju­at launched of Inu­it self-rep­re­sen­ta­tion and vibrant com­mu­ni­ty cinema.