This feature film is a documentary portrait of Joseph Idlout, a man who was once the world's most famous Inuit. Unknown to most Canadians today, Idlout was the subject of many films and books, and one of the Inuit hunters pictured for many years on the back of Canada's $2 bill. In this film Idlout's son, Peter Paniloo, takes us on a journey through his father's life - that of a man caught "between two worlds."
Narrator
This feature film is a documentary portrait of Joseph Idlout, a man who was once the world's most famous Inuit. Unknown to most Canadians today, Idlout was the subject of many films and books, and one of the Inuit hunters pictured for many years on the back of Canada's $2 bill. In this film Idlout's son, Peter Paniloo, takes us on a journey through his father's life - that of a man caught "between two worlds."
1990-01-01
0
The Living Stone is a 1958 Canadian short documentary film directed by John Feeney about Inuit art. It shows the inspiration behind Inuit sculpture. The Inuit approach to the work is to release the image the artist sees imprisoned in the rough stone. The film centres on an old legend about the carving of the image of a sea spirit to bring food to a hungry camp. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short.
Documentary that follows a lone Inuit as he hunts, fishes and constructs an igloo, a way of life threatened by climate change.
This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
Part oral history and part visual poem, Miss Campbell: Inuk Teacher is the story of Evelyn Campbell, a trailblazer for an Inuit-led educational system in the small community of Rigolet, Labrador.
The drawings and recollections of Inuit artist Pitseolak, from the book of the same title written by Dorothy Eber. Now in her seventies, Pitseolak is one of the most famous of the graphic artists of the Cape Dorset (Baffin Island) artists' colony and co-operative. Her coloured pencil and felt-pen drawings vividly illustrate her memories of past life in the Arctic, and of the birds, animals and spirits that figured so large in the daily life of the Inuit.
With "sealfies" and social media, a new tech-savvy generation of Inuit is wading into the world of activism, using humour and reason to confront aggressive animal rights vitriol and defend their traditional hunting practices. Director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril joins her fellow Inuit activists as they challenge outdated perceptions of Inuit and present themselves to the world as a modern people in dire need of a sustainable economy.
In this feature-length documentary, 8 Inuit teens with cameras offer a vibrant and contemporary view of life in Canada's North. They also use their newly acquired film skills to confront a broad range of issues, from the widening communication gap between youth and their elders to the loss of their peers to suicide. In Inuktitut with English subtitles.
More signs of winter's end as more wildlife returns. The family makes an excursion for fresh fish from a lake. They build a karmak and move in the furs, cooking troughs, etc. The woman sets up her lamp, spreads the furs and attends to the children. There are signs of returning wildlife. The man moves out on the lake ice and chips a hole for fishing. He baits his hook and lowers it jigging the line to attract the fish. Crouched by the hole, he persists with his purpose and takes some fish, as does his wife who has joined him. Both remain at the hole through a severe blizzard. Please note that this is an archival film that makes use of the word “Eskimo,” an outdated and offensive term. While the origin of the word is a matter of some contention, it is no longer used in Canada. This film is therefore a time capsule of a bygone era, presented in its original version. The NFB apologizes for the offence caused.
The time is early autumn. The woman wakes and dresses the boy. He practices with his sling while she spreads a caribou skin to dry. The boy picks berries and then the men come in their kayak with another caribou. This is skinned, and soon night falls. In the morning, one man leaves with his bow while the other makes a fishing mannick, a bait of caribou meat. The woman works at the skins, this time cleaning sinews and hanging them to dry. The man repairs his arrows and then sets a snare for a gull. The child stones the snared gull and then plays hunter, using some antlers for a target. His father makes him a spinning top. Two men arrive at the camp and the four build from stones a long row of manlike figures, inukshult, down toward the water. They wait for caribou and then chase them toward the stone figures and so into the water where other men in kayaks spear them. The dead animals are floated ashore and skinned.
Two Eskimo families travel across the wide sea ice. Before night falls they build small igloos and we see the construction in detail. The next day a polar bear is seen basking in the warming sun. A woman lights her seal oil lamp, carefully forming the wick from moss. The man repairs his snow goggles. Another man arrives dragging a polar bear skin. The boy has made a bear-shaped figure from snow and practices throwing his spear. Then he tries his bow. Now, with her teeth, the woman crimps the sole of a sealskin boot she is making. The men are hunting seal through the sea-ice in the bleak windy weather. The wind disturbs the "tell-tales," made of eider down or a hair loop on a bone, that signal when a seal rises to breathe. A hunter strikes, kills and drags his catch up and away. At the igloo the woman scrapes at a polar bear skin and a man repairs a sled. In the warming weather the igloo is topped with furs and a snow shelter is built to hide the sled from the sun.
This short documentary depicts the formation in 1959 of the first successful co-operative in an Inuit community in Northern Québec. The film describes how, with other Inuit of the George River community, the Annanacks formed a joint venture that included a sawmill, a fish-freezing plant and a small boat-building industry.
In Inukjuak, an Inuit community in the Eastern Arctic, a baby boy has come into the world and they call him Timuti, a name that recurs across generations of his people, evoking other Timutis, alive and dead, who will nourish his spirit and shape his destiny.
For centuries, Inuit in the Arctic have lived on and around the frozen ocean. Now, as climate change is rapidly melting the sea ice between Canada and Greenland, the outside world sees unprecedented opportunity. Oil and gas deposits, faster shipping routes, tourism, and fishing all provide financial incentive to exploit the newly opened waters. But for more than 100,000 Inuit, an entire way of life is at stake. Development here threatens to upset the delicate balance between their communities, land, and wildlife. Divided by aggressive colonization and decades of hardship, Inuit in Canada and Greenland are once again coming together, fighting to protect what will remain of their world. The question is, will the world listen?
Renowned Inuit lawyer Aaju Peter has long fought for the rights of her people. When her son suddenly dies, Aaju embarks on a journey to reclaim her language and culture after a lifetime of whitewashing and forced assimilation. But can she both change the world and mend her own wounds?
Qallunaat! Why White People Are Funny is an irreverent look at Western Civilization through Inuit eyes. Inspired by the satirical essays of Zebedee Nungak, the film turns the tables on generations of anthropologists, teachers, adventurers and administrators who went North to pursue their Arctic Dreams. Now it’s their turn to be poked, prodded, examined and explained. A new generation of Inuit is ready to take on the Qallunaat at their own game. Grounded in their own traditions but educated in the South, they have a unique perspective on the culture that has come to dominate the planet. And they are not afraid to speak their minds.
Ulivia explores what is accessible via the Internet in relation to Inuktitut. A complex language with several dialects which varies from one generation to the next. Inuktitut is threatened by dominant languages. Are there solutions so that these technologies are allies and not enemies?
Nalujuk Night is an up close look at an exhilarating, and sometimes terrifying, Labrador Inuit tradition. Every January 6th from the dark of the Nunatsiavut night, the Nalujuit appear on the sea ice. They walk on two legs, yet their faces are animalistic, skeletal, and otherworldly. Snow crunches underfoot as they approach their destination: the Inuit community of Nain. Despite the frights, Nalujuk Night is a beloved annual event, showing that sometimes it can be fun to be scared. Rarely witnessed outside of Nunatsiavut, this annual event is an exciting chance for Inuit, young and old, to prove their courage and come together as a community to celebrate culture and tradition. Inuk filmmaker Jennie Williams brings audiences directly into the action in this bone-chilling black and white short documentary about a winter night like no other.
Director Elisapie Issac's documentary is a sort-of letter to her deceased grandfather addressing the question of Inuit culture in the modern world.
In the mid-1950s, lured by false promises of a better life, Inuit families were displaced by the Canadian government and left to their own devices in the Far North. In this icy desert realm, Martha Flaherty and her family lived through one of Canadian history’s most sombre and little-known episodes.
If you want to find world-class artisans, the small northern Labrador community of Hopedale offers you some of the best. Created through the St. John's International Women's Film Festival's FRAMED film education series, in partnership with the Nunatsiavut government, this film focuses on three prominent local craftspeople- two carvers and one traditional sewist.