''Angry Inuk'' is a 2016

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

Inuit-themed feature-length documentary film written and directed by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril that defends the

Inuit Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, ...

seal hunt Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. Seal hunting is currently practiced in ten countries: United States (above the Arctic Circle in Alaska), Canada, Namibia, Denmark (in self-governing Greenland only), I ...

, as the hunt is a vital means for Inuit to sustain themselves. Subjects in ''Angry Inuk'' include Arnaquq-Baril herself as well as Aaju Peter, an Inuit seal hunt advocate, lawyer and seal fur clothing designer who depends on the sealskins for her livelihood. Partially shot in the filmmaker's home community of Iqaluit, as well as Kimmirut and Pangnirtung, where seal hunting is essential for survival, the film follows Peter and other Inuit to Europe in an effort to have the EU Ban on Seal Products overturned. The film also criticizes NGOs such as

Greenpeace Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning network, founded in Canada in 1971 by Irving Stowe and Dorothy Stowe, immigrant environmental activists from the United States. Greenpeace states its goal is to "ensure the ability of the Earth ...

and the

International Fund for Animal Welfare The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is one of the largest animal welfare and conservation charities in the world. The organization works to rescue individual animals, safeguard populations, preserve habitat, and advocate for greate ...

for ignoring the needs of vulnerable northern communities who depend on hunt for their livelihoods by drawing a false distinction between subsistence-driven Inuit hunters and profit-driven commercial hunters.

Development

''Angry Inuk'' was co-produced by Arnaquq-Baril and the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

(NFB) in association with

EyeSteelFilm EyeSteelFilm is a Montreal-based Canadian cinema production company co-founded by Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin, dedicated to socially engaged cinema, bringing social and political change through cinematic expression. Today the studio is run ...

Release and reception

''Angry Inuk'' premiered May 2, 2016 at the

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is the largest documentary festival in North America. The event takes place annually in Toronto, Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ont ...

, where the film received the Vimeo On Demand Audience Award along with the Canadian Documentary Promotion Award. In October 2016, the film received the

Alanis Obomsawin Alanis Obomsawin, (born August 31, 1932) is an Abenaki American Canadian filmmaker, singer, artist, and activist primarily known for her documentary films. Born in New Hampshire New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the n ...

Best Documentary Award at the

imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is the world's largest Indigenous film and media arts festival, held annually in Toronto in the month of October. The festival focuses on the film, video, radio, and new media work of Indigenous, Abori ...

in Toronto. The following month, it received both the Women Inmates' Prize and the

Magnus Isacsson Magnus Isacsson (1948 - August 2, 2012) was a Canadian documentary filmmaker whose films investigated contemporary political issues and topics in social activism. Early life and television career Isacsson was born in Sweden in 1948. His father ...

Award at the Montreal International Documentary Festival. On December 7, 2016, ''Angry Inuk'' was named to the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...

's annual Canada's Top 10 list, and took home the People's Choice Award at the TIFF Canada's Top Ten Festival. While Arnaquq-Baril has stated that the anti-sealing movement has forced Inuit to turn to the mining and the natural gas industry to support themselves, with dire consequences for the Arctic environment, supporters of the EU ban on seal products have countered that such a ban does not block Inuit from seal hunting to sustain themselves and supply market demand. However, the film argues that even with the exemption for Inuit, the ban drives down demand and prices so greatly that hunters can no longer financially support themselves or their communities.

References

External links

* *{{IMDb title, 5709536
Interview with the filmmaker
''

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'',

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2016 films Canadian documentary films Indigenous peoples and the environment Documentary films about Inuit in Canada National Film Board of Canada documentaries EyeSteelFilm films Documentary films about the Arctic Seal hunting Qikiqtaaluk Region Films about hunter-gatherers Works about Nunavut 2010s Canadian films

Development

Release and reception

See also

References

External links