The Fast Runner looks back on career as celebrated film turns 25

This story was updated on Friday, Sept. 11, 2026, at 2 p.m. ET.

Natar Ungalaq is 25 years past his breakout role in Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, but right now he’s celebrating a milestone of a different sort.

He’s still alive after a cancer diagnosis and 10 rounds of chemotherapy.

“I have a serious situation now,” he said by phone on Wednesday, an unbowed cheeriness in his voice. “But I’m improving.”

Ungalaq, 67, rose to fame in the lead role of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, which won the Caméra d’Or in May 2001 at Cannes, marking the first and only time a Canadian film has won the honour. 

Its Canadian première was on Sept. 13, 2001, at the Toronto International Film Festival. The screening was delayed due to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and Washington D.C., recalled Zacharias Kunuk, the film’s writer and director, Friday in an interview.

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner went on to win Best Canadian Film at the Toronto International Film Festival, along with 25 other honours and is considered by many one of the best Canadian films ever.

“We had no idea of the impact it would make,” said Kunuk, reflecting on the film’s legacy, created with his childhood friend Ungalaq. “At the time we were just starting out.”

To celebrate the iconic Inuktitut-language film turning 25 this year, Nunatsiaq News invited Ungalaq, the Fast Runner himself, to reflect on his 58-year marathon career as an artist and actor, as well as his friendship with Kunuk.

Ungalaq saw his first film at age four — peering out from the hood of his aunt’s amauti — in a blue matchbox house that served as Igloolik’s movie theatre back in 1963.

However it was soapstone, not celluloid, that first launched Ungalaq’s journey into the film industry.

At age nine he sneaked a file from his grandfather’s toolbox and carved a seal pup that he sold to a teacher for 75 cents.

“It wasn’t good,” Ungalaq said of his first work.

At the time though, three quarters paid for three movie tickets — or two tickets with popcorn.

Ungalaq continued to sell carvings so he could witness every weekend screening.

“They were all kinds of movies — old movies, such as cowboys and Indians killing each other, and there were some about the Bible,” he said. “All kinds of stories.”

Timeless Inuit stories shared by his grandmother, Martha Angugatiaq Ungalaq, had already captivated the child’s imagination from his earliest years growing up in his grandparents’ qarmaq, or sod house, located west of what’s now known as Igloolik. 

He’d moved in with his grandparents while his parents spent their time at the Ungulaq family camp, located halfway to the Hudson Bay trading post at what would became Naujaat.

“They hunted 24-7,” he said of his parents during that period.

Ungalaq’s grandmother regaled her grandson with true stories and shamanic tales of shapeshifting characters and travels into the future.

His grandparents did not earn an income, so the boy quickly concluded, “OK, I have to become an artist.”

It was at this time that Ungalaq teamed up with Kunuk, who would become his lifelong friend and collaborator. The boys carved together in a small shack after school, honing their craft through their teens and into early manhood.

“We used to make good bucks to make our future,” Ungalaq said.

Eight hours of dusty labour would earn each carver $1,500 from the Co-op, which sold their carvings for twice as much.

Ungalaq purchased snowmobiles, three-wheelers, motorcycles, boats, and outboard motors with the proceeds.

He crafted Sedna with a Hairbrush from grey stone, fur and bone in 1985, which the National Gallery of Canada acquired in 1989.

“That’s the time I started to think, ‘OK, where is a good job without the dust?’” he said.

Ungalaq worked on a pair of TV projects, then on his first feature film, Kabloonak, in 1994.

A few years later, Atarnajuat: The Fast Runner began development.

The leading role was not Ungalaq’s out of the gate. Originally Kunuk cast fellow actor Charlie Qulitalik for the part.

When Qulitalik was absent for a live presentation of the story in front of members of the newly formed Nunavut government, Kunuk pointed at his friend. Without a word, Ungalaq donned Atanarjuat’s caribou and sealskin costume.

“It fit,” Ungalaq said.

He took on the lead and never looked back. Kunuk casted Qulitalik in a different role in the movie.

Ungalaq went on to act in more than 10 other feature films. His many honours include a Best Actor Genie Award for his role in the 2008 film Ce Qu’il Faut Pour Vivre (The Necessities of Life).

Looking back on his films, Ungalaq said he’s proud of the legacy he’s created.

“Even if they put me in the grave, for either hundreds or thousands of years, they will be there for good,” he said. “And even my great-, great-, great-grandchildren will be able to say, ‘Oh, my grandfather was an actor. How did he do that?’”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the date Atarnajuat: The Fast Runner screened at the Toronto International Film Festival.