Nunavut seal hunt film a festival favourite

From left, Angry Inuk’s director of photography, Qajaaq Ellsworth, director and producer Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, with Kimmirut hunters Joannie Ikkidluak and Isuaqtuq Ikkidluak. Angry Inuk premiered at Toronto’s Hot Docs festival earlier this month, where it picked up the Vimeo On Demand Audience Award, along with the Canadian Documentary Promotion Award, which comes with a $25,000 cash prize. (PHOTO BY QAJAAQ ELLSWORTH)

TORONTO — Iqaluit filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril is used to an element of conflict and tension when she heads south.

As an artist and activist, Arnaquq-Baril often travels south to present — and to typically defend — aspects of Inuit culture which aren’t always well understood or appreciated by a southern audience.

A subject like the Inuit seal hunt is a good example. “You get so tired of feeling judged,” she admits.

But something was markedly different this time.

Arnaquq-Baril’s new documentary, Angry Inuk, recently premiered at Toronto’s Hot Docs film festival, the largest documentary festival in North America.

The feature-length documentary explores the Inuit seal hunt from an Inuit perspective, following a group of Nunavummiut working to overturn the European Union’s ban on the sale of seal products.

What Arnaquq-Baril found, to her surprise, was a sympathetic audience, interested to learn what the seal hunt meant to Arctic communities.

“It was kinda crazy coming out of the theatre… people were grabbing me and Aaju [Peter] and gushing and giving us their congratulations,” she said.

“A woman was just walking by… and she just reached out and touched my arm, and said, ‘You’re not alone anymore.’

“It meant so much,” Arnaquq-Baril recalled. “It just summed up the feeling of the night. I never thought I would have this many people understand our perspective.”

Angry Inuk was so popular, it picked up the festival’s Vimeo On Demand Audience Award this week, along with the Canadian Documentary Promotion Award, which comes with a $25,000 cash prize.

Arnaquq-Baril, 38, began researching and filming Angry Inuk eight years ago, although she said the film’s focus shifted over the years as the EU ban was implemented.

The documentary opens with a scene on the floe edge in Kimmirut in 2008. It’s springtime and Arnaquq-Baril is filming her uncle, Joannie Ikkidluak, hunting a seal.

Once Ikkidluak brings his catch back on shore, he skins the animal, pausing only to grab a morsel of brain to eat.

Once the hunting party returns home, Ikkidluak calls friends and family to come over share in the harvest, while chunks of meat are laid out on cardboard lining the floor.

It might be a foreign and bloody scene for a southern audience to take in, but Arnaquq-Baril said the scene was among the most powerful for festival viewers, who told her they were touched to see how Inuit share their food.

Angry Inuk goes on to follow the efforts of Iqaluit lawyer and seal hunt activist Aaju Peter, who travels to the European Parliament to share an Inuit perspective, only to be overwhelmed by an anti-sealing lobby handing out stuffed baby seal dolls.

The documentary also features a group of students from the Ottawa-based Nunavut Sivuniksavut, as they organize their own campaign to educate global audiences about the Inuit seal hunt.

Arnaquq-Baril notes that Inuit have traditionally dealt with conflict their own way, using methods that could be considered “too soft” for western powers. But that is changing, she said.

“This film is definitely activism,” she said. “It’s my way of protesting. And I’m really happy to see Inuit beginning to protest issues that are important to them.

“I’m also happy to see it happening in a very Inuk way.”

As anxious as Arnaquq-Baril is to screen Angry Inuk at home, the documentary is aimed at educating non-Inuit audiences, she said.

And that’s her focus for now — Arnaquq-Baril hopes to have the film screened at festivals in the United States and Europe throughout 2016.

Arnaquq-Baril wrote and directed Angry Inuk, and co-produced the film with Bonnie Thompson. Qajaaq Ellsworth was the film’s director of photography.

You can watch a clip of the film here.