January 31, 2017 – Montreal – National Film Board of Canada (NFB)
With the seal hunt criticized by anti-sealing groups, Quebec audiences will finally have a chance to hear the Inuit side of the debate in Alethea Arnaquq-Baril’s Angry Inuk, a feature documentary co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and Unikkaat Studios in association with EyeSteelFilm. The film will be released in theatres February 10, at the Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Parc in Montreal and the Cinéma Le Clap in Quebec City, following numerous awards and much audience acclaim, including the Vimeo On Demand Audience Award at the Hot Docs festival and the People’s Choice Award at the Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival, organized by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Angry Inuk is enjoying a festival tour crowned with success, the next stop being the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (February 1–11) in California, where it will make its U.S. premiere. That promises to be just the first of many opportunities for American audiences to hear the Inuit side of the seal-hunt debate, thanks to a U.S. distribution deal for Angry Inuk signed recently with BOND/360. The film will then be featured at the Berlin International Film Festival (February 9–19) as part of its series NATIVe—A Journey into Indigenous Cinema, which is focusing this year on Arctic Indigenous filmmaking.
Angry Inuk coming to theatres February 10
Cinémathèque québécoise (original English and Inuktitut version with French subtitles)
Cinéma du Parc (original English and Inuktitut version)
Cinéma Le Clap (original English and Inuktitut version with French subtitles)
About the film
Angry Inuk introduces audiences to a new generation of Inuit who are challenging anti-sealing groups and bringing their voices into the conversation. Arnaquq-Baril and her cameras travel through the Canadian Arctic to hear from the people the animal activists rarely bother to meet—the hunters, the craftspeople, the families for whom the seal hunt is a critical part of their livelihood and survival—and follow a group of students to Europe, where they plead the Inuit case before a European Union panel.
Seal meat is a staple food for Inuit, with many of the pelts sold to offset the extraordinary cost of hunting. Inuit are pushing for a sustainable way to take part in the global economy—but in opposition stands an army of well-funded activists and well-meaning celebrities. Angry Inuk interweaves the reality of Inuit life with their challenge to the anti-sealing industry and to nations that mine resources on Inuit lands while simultaneously destroying the main sustainable economy available there.
Angry Inuk is an Unikkaat Studios Inc. production, in co-production with the NFB, and in association with EyeSteelFilm. Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Bonnie Thompson (NFB) are the producers. Executive producers are Bob Moore, Daniel Cross and David Christensen (NFB).
Awards
Angry Inuk garnered some of Canada’s top film honours this past year, including: the Vimeo On Demand Audience Award at the Hot Docs festival; the Alanis Obomsawin Best Documentary Award at imagineNATIVE; a spot among Canada’s Top Ten Films for 2016, compiled by the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF); and the People’s Choice Award at Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival. His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston also recently conferred a Meritorious Service Cross on Alethea Arnaquq-Baril to underscore her exceptional achievement in founding Unikkaat Studios.
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Associated Links
Unikkaat Studios
EyeSteelFilm
Santa Barbara International Film Festival
BOND/360
NATIVe—A Journey into Indigenous Cinema
Cinémathèque québécoise
Cinéma du Parc
Cinéma Le Clap