What Belongs to Inuit

This film joins a hunting-party of inhabitants of the Frobisher Bay Correctional Centre. The stalking, killing and skinning of seal and caribou are featured prominently, with explanations as to the importance of these animals to the Inuit way of life.

Brief history and profile of Inuit communities in Northern Labrador and the role of the Moravian missionaries in the region. Warning for outdated and offensive term used.

This short documentary studies life in the village of Kangirsujuaq, Nunavik. In this community on the edge of the Arctic Ocean, children’s laughter fills the streets while the old people ponder the passage of time. They are nomads of the wide-open spaces who are trying to get used to the strange feeling of staying put. While the teenagers lap up Southern culture and play golf on the tundra to kill time, the Elders are slowly dying, as their entire culture seems to fade away. Elisapie Isaac, a filmmaker born in Nunavik, decides to return to her roots on this breathtaking land. To bridge the growing gap between the young and the old, she speaks to her grandfather, now deceased, and confides in him her hopes and fears. Grappling with isolation, family relationships, resource extraction, land-based knowledges, the influence of Southern culture and the ongoing impacts of colonialism on Inuit ways of life, Elisapie Isaac offers a nuanced portrait of the North.

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.

Documentary that follows a lone Inuit as he hunts, fishes and constructs an igloo, a way of life threatened by climate change.

In this animated short from the Canada Vignette series, the camera explores, in exquisite detail, the daily hunt, fishing scenes and children at play as etched in black on an ivory Inuit pipe.

A portrait of Inuit hunter and artist Lypa Pitsiulak, who decided to return to the land several years ago. His goal was to rediscover his culture, teach his family survival skills in the harsh Arctic environment, and pull himself and his family away from the negative influences of white culture. The film portrays his lifestyle, his love for his family, and some of the sources of his artistic inspiration. It also highlights his beautiful prints and sculptures, with their fantastic interweaving of figures from the animal, spirit and human worlds.

Taqralik Partridge asks what if every language that had been lost to English — every word, every syllable — grew up out of the ground in flowers? Taqralik’s grandmother’s Scottish Gaelic and her father’s Inuktitut unfold in memories of her family, of pain, and of love.

Through interviews with Inuit across Nunavut, and documentation of a three-year community hearing process during the COVID pandemic, award-winning filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk explores what meaningful consultation in the 21st century means within the context of a large-scale mining expansion on Baffin Island.

A portrait of Ulayok Kaviok, one of the last of a generation of Inuit, born and bred on the land. Ulayok and her family, like many Inuit today, strive to balance 2 very different worlds. Her skills in making the sealskin boots called kamik may soon be lost in the cultural transformation overtaking her community. Kamik offers a glimpse of those universes and the thread one woman weaves between them.

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.