North meets south: Canadian Inuit bound for Mexico arts festival

Inuit artists are helping represent Canada at a major Mexican performing arts festival this October.

Programming for the Festival Internacional Cervantino includes recent Inuit films, Juno-nominated artist Elisapie and Qaggiavuut’s artistic director, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory.

“Mexico, here we come with some Arctic love and melting ice!” Bathory wrote on Twitter.

The festival will feature Inuit music, theatre and film alongside other Indigenous and non-Indigenous participants as part of Canada’s role as guest country at the festival.

Each October, the Mexican city of Guanajuato becomes home to the Festival Internacional Cervantino. The festival, which runs from Oct. 9 to Oct. 27, will follow the theme of “Migrations.”

Canada has been a featured guest before, taking part in 2002 as a country and in 2009 as Quebec, and is now gearing up to return for the 2019 event.

The hit film The Grizzlies will play on Oct. 23, award-winning documentary Angry Inuk will play on October 25 and Nunavik musician Elisapie will take the stage on Oct. 11.

Meanwhile, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory and the Buddies in Bad Times Theatre are showing Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools on Oct. 25 and Oct. 26.

The Canada Council for the Arts, which is supporting the country’s participation along with Global Affairs Canada and the Embassy of Canada in Mexico, wrote on Facebook that they’re “thrilled that Mexican audiences will have the opportunity to discover the richness and diversity of Canadian creativity.”