9 Inuit- and Sámi-Directed Films to Catch at imagineNATIVE

Cozy up on the couch or grab some theatre seats and ease into fall movie season with these films from Inuit and Sámi directors. This year’s imagineNATIVE Film Festival is your chance to catch not only the feature-length alien adventure Slash/Back from Nyla Innuksuk, but also eight short films directed by Inuit and Sámi filmmakers bringing Arctic land and life to the screen.

Spirit Emulsion

Siku Allooloo Spirit Emulsion (2022) (trailer)© the artist

Screening: In person October 19 at 8:45 pm; virtual screening October 24–30 as part of the Big Stars 3 program
Director: Siku Allooloo

Spirit Emulsion, an experimental short film by Inuk and Haitian Taíno writer, artist and poet Siku Allooloo, tells the story of a woman’s connection to her mother in the spirit world. The story of this connection, reactivating Taíno culture and presence now and into the future, is told against the backdrop of flowers and other natural elements. Filmed on Super 8 and developed by hand, Spirit Emulsion connects the ancestral and the modern in new ways.

Slash/Back

Nyla Innuksuk Slash/Back (2022) (trailer)Courtesy Mongrel Media © the artist

Screening: October 23 at 3:15 pm
Director: Nyla Innuksuk

Centring around a group of pre-teen girls who fight off an alien invasion in the remote Arctic community of Panniqtuuq (Pangnirtung), NU, the long-awaited Slash/Back spent more than three years in development under the direction of the talented Nyla Innuksuk. A coming-of-age story with a healthy blend of horror, the feature-length flick was shot under 24-hour daylight in the Arctic, necessitating some visual trickery to create both the illusion of time passing and the feeling of fright without it being dark. Innuksuk is an imagineNATIVE veteran, having previously been the inaugural imagineNATIVE artist-in-residence from 2017 to 2018.

ŠAAMŠIǨ – Great Grandmother’s Hat

Anstein Mikkelsen and Harry Johansen ŠAAMŠIǨ – Great Grandmother’s Hat (2022) (trailer)© the artist

Screening: October 22 at 5:45 pm; virtual screening available
Directors: Anstein Mikkelsen and Harry Johansen

ŠAAMŠIǨ – Great Grandmother’s Hat tells the story of the Skolt Sámi by following Venke Tørmænen in her quest to learn to sew the Skolt Sámi women’s hat worn by her great-grandmother in an old picture. “I feel that when I can sew it and put it on my head, the ring is closed. I want the world to know that we exist. We are here and we live here.”

Imajuik

Marc Fussing Rosbach Imajuik (2021) (trailer)© the artist

Screening: In person October 22 at 9:00 pm; virtual screening October 24–30 as part of the Dark Matter 12 program
Director: Marc Fussing Rosbach

Imajuik is a sci-fi horror short film by Marc Fussing Rosbach, an award-winning Inuk filmmaker. Commissioned by the International Sámi Film Institute, the 18-minute film follows the journey of Imajuik, the last person in Nuuk, Greenland, in the year 2060. The capital of Greenland has become a ghost town due to a uranium mine explosion in the area, but Imajuik discovers that they may not be the only person in the area after all.

Imalirijit

Tim Anaviapik Soucie and Vincent L’Hérault Imalirijit (2021) (trailer)© the artist

Screening: In person October 22 at 3:00 pm; virtual screening October 24–30 as part of the Aurora Borealis 10 program
Directors: Vincent L’Hérault and Tim Anaviapik Soucie

In a “complete flip of the typical research model,” a young father living in Mittimatalik (Pond Inlet), NU, starts his own research program to investigate water quality in his community. As his grandfather did before him, Tim Anaviapik Soucie uses research to protect a resource that is vital to his people’s culture and traditions as climate change threatens the region.

Arctic Song

Germaine Arnattaujuq (Arnaktauyok), Neil Christopher and Louise Flaherty Arctic Song (2022) (trailer)Courtesy National Film Board of Canada © the artist

Screening: In person October 22 at 3:00 pm; virtual screening (Canada only) October 24–30 as part of the Aurora Borealis 10 program
Directors: Germaine Arnattaujuq (Arnaktauyok), Neil Christopher and Louise Flaherty

This six-minute short by renowned artist Germaine Arnattaujuq (also known as Germaine Arnaktauyok), Arctic Song re-envisions the Inuit creation stories that the Iglulik (Igloolik), NU, artist is well known for depicting in her graphic art, meant to revitalize ancient knowledge for young Inuit. While Arnattaujuq has authored multiple illustrated books and in 2021 won the Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts, Arctic Song is only the second time she has worked in film; she previously created puppet designs for celebrated stop-motion film The Owl and the Raven (1973).

Boso mu ruovttoluotta (Breathe me back to life)

Promotional image for Sunna Nousuniemi’s Boso mu ruovttoluotta (Breathe Me Back to Life) (2021)Courtesy imagineNATIVE © the artist

Screening: In person October 22 at 3:00 pm; virtual screening October 24–30 as part of the Aurora Borealis 10 program
Director: Sunna Nousuniemi

In Boso mu ruovttoluotta (Breathe Me Back to Life), Sámi writer and director Sunna Nousuniemi shares her story of surviving sexual violence and coping with post-traumatic stress while showing how family and homeland have been part of her experience. Speaking to imagineNATIVE in 2020 about her film gáidat-máhccat (dissociate), she said, “When we get to share our stories, we hold space for each other and our healing.” Nousuniemi does just that with Breathe Me Back to Life, which took home Best Short Film at this year’s Nuuk International Film Festival.

Kimmirut Race

Screening: In person October 22 at 3:00 pm
Director: Nadia Mike

Kimmirut Race brings us along for the ride with snowmobile-racing enthusiast Davidee Qaumariaq as he takes part in the annual Kimmirut Race, a 320-kilometre spectators’ favourite race from Iqaluit, NU, to the neighbouring southern community of Kimmirut, NU, and back.

Beach Heart

Screening: In person October 21 at 3:30 pm; virtual screening October 24–30 as part of the Mothership I program
Director: Glenn Gear

Montreal artist Glenn Gear is well known for his short films, blending archival images and footage with contemporary animation techniques to explore the tensions of his identity as an urban Inuk with familial ties to Nunatsiavut. Recorded in 2021 at beaches and coves throughout Elmastukwek, Ktaqmkuk (Bay of Islands, Newfoundland), Beach Heart is Gear’s intimate tribute to his late mother and to the surrounding landscape where she lived and loved.