The oral history of Inuit is filled with many folktales, legends, and myths. In this traditional story, a young owl catches a lemming to eat. Inuit stories are often instructive, and with this fable, children quickly learn the value of being clever and humble, and why pride and arrogance are to be...
Both a requiem for and an honoring of Canada's First Nations, Métis, and Inuit women, this short film deconstructs the layers of Canadian nationalism. In the process, it reverses the colonial lens by shifting the balance of power to reclaim the Canadian narrative, putting the enduring strength and...
In this animated short, a self-important colonial explorer emerges from a sailing ship and plants a flag on the Arctic ice, as a bemused Inuit hunter looks on. Then the explorer plants another, and another, and another, while the hunter, clearly not impressed that his land has been...
In Inukjuak, an Inuit community in the Eastern Arctic, a baby boy has come into the world and they call him Timuti, a name that recurs across generations of his people, evoking other Timutis, alive and dead, who will nourish his spirit and shape his destiny.
Now it is July - summer. The run-off is in full spate and open water shows offshore. Ice cakes melt on the shingle. On the bay are ducks. It is time to build a kayak, a task shared by two men. They gather materials: valuable scraps of wood, bone, seal skins and sinews. Now there is much cutting,...
In late winter when the cold is severe, the people and dogs are glad to stop their trek and make camp. In the blue dusk the men probe the snow and then cut building blocks while the women shovel a site. Soon all are under cover, and in the wavering light of the stone lamp they sleep, their breath...
It is taking decades for Canada to come to terms with its history in the Arctic, and with its relationship to all its indigenous people. “Kikkik” is the story of government mistakes and neglect, of starvation, murder, freezing death, but, in the end, a kind of justice that helps restore our...
If you want to find world-class artisans, the small northern Labrador community of Hopedale offers you some of the best. Created through the St. John's International Women's Film Festival's FRAMED film education series, in partnership with the Nunatsiavut government, this film focuses on three...
This collection assembles the first animated films to be made by Inuit artists at the NFB. Featured is work by Solomonie Pootoogook, Timmun Alariaq, Mathew Joanasie, and Itee Pootoogook Pilaloosie—all participants in the Cape Dorset (Baffin Island) Film Animation Workshop, established to teach...
Two young friends are spending a day away from their camp. Unfortunately for them, an ancient land spirit -- an amautalik -- is also in the area. Luckily for them both, one of the children's difficult life has taught him to think quickly.
Made in collaboration with the Inuit Tungavingat Nunamini, this film focuses on those dissident members of the Inuit community who rejected the agreement signed on November 11, 1975, between the Northern Quebec Inuit Association, the Québec and federal governments, the James Bay Energy...
This documentary closely follows a group of people living in the Bering Strait and delves into the fundamental aspects of their daily lives, their survival, and the contrast between their traditions and the modern world. With extraordinary imagery, Bering portrays exceptionally well a community...
They Have to Hear Us: Canada’s Duty to Consult Inuit
02025HD
Through interviews with Inuit across Nunavut, and documentation of a three-year community hearing process during the COVID pandemic, award-winning filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk explores what meaningful consultation in the 21st century means within the context of a large-scale mining expansion on Baffin...
The story of an ice-fishing trip taken by two unlikely friends—Ukaliq the Arctic hare and Kalla the lemming. Well-meaning but impatient, Ukaliq can’t catch a single Arctic char! Good thing Kalla is there. Embodying the calm, thoughtful nature of traditional hunters and those who live in the...
Danish documentary following different locations and situations in Greenland anno 1914. It comes around settlements, hunters, steamboats, umiaks, a kayak race, and a football match. Photographed by W. Thalbitzer.
"Melting Lives - Victims of the New Weather" is a six-part documentary series in which the viewers meet people in the Arctic region who live close to and depend on nature for survival, and who struggle to maintain their way of life. Their tales are being heard and testimonies about how life is...
Danish documentary filmed in Greenland. Shows a lot of Greenlanders, skiing, hunting for birds, seals and whales, and ice fishing. Filmed by Dr. Leif Folke.
Netsilik Eskimos, IV: Group Hunting on the Spring Ice
2.51967HD
Late June, and much of the land is bare. There are sounds of running water, and melt ponds shine everywhere. The woman carries heather and moss to camp and the man makes a whirling bullroarer for the boy. Another child pretends to drive a dog sled. A woman is working sinews into bowstrings, while...
In this animated short the artist tells the story of an Inuit hunter who clubs a seal pup on the ice and then later dies himself. The film's ethereal images are created and transformed in sand.
