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IGLULIK - Iglulik-based actor Natar Ungalaaq earned the top Canadian film industry honour for his lead part in the feature film The Necessities of Life earlier this month.

He received the Genie Award for best actor in a leading role at the ceremony in Ottawa on April 4, beating out international stage and screen legend Christopher Plummer.

Natar Ungalaaq acts in a scene from The Necessities of Life. The intimate performance earned Ungalaaq a Genie award for best actor. Ungalaaq attracted international attention in 2001 for his starring role in Atanarjuat the Fast Runner. - photo courtesy of Seville Pictures

"That was very surprising for me," Ungalaaq said after returning home from the south last week.

His industry colleagues were not as surprised.

"I was expecting that," said Benoit Pilon, director of the 2008 drama that featured Ungalaaq's honoured performance. "I was so proud and so happy for him."

The role also won Ungalaaq the best actor award at the prestigious Palm Springs International Film Festival in California last year.

"From the moment I read the script for The Necessities of Life I thought of Natar for the part because I had seen him in Atanarjuat the Fast Runner," Pilon said. "It's a story about a sick man, an Inuit, in a sanatorium and the viewer has to care for the man. It had to be someone that has charisma that you will follow through this difficult journey. I was sure that Natar would give us that. His eyes are full of intelligence and humour and he's a very touching man."

The film shares the story of an Inuit with tuberculosis from Pond Inlet who is taken to a hospital in Quebec City by the Canadian government. He finds personal hope by sharing his language and culture with a young boy.

Pilon said he would not be surprised if Ungalaaq continues to break new ground for Inuit actors.

"He's not just a great Inuit actor. He's a great actor and I think he deserves to play in any kind of part in any kind of film that is made in Canada or elsewhere," he said.

Filmmaker Zacharius Kunuk cast Ungalaaq as the lead in Atanarjuat the Fast Runner, which attracted international attention in 2001.

"We're really happy for him because he's taking it to the next step, getting aboriginal actors, especially Inuit, to that level," said the founder of Isuma Igloolik Productions.

"Back in 2002 when we were winning Genie Awards for Atanarjurat – best director, best editing, overall best film – there was nothing for actors because at that time the system didn't really know what to do with us. We were using actors that haven't gone to acting school."

Kunuk and Ungalaaq began making video shorts together in Iglulik back in 1981 when the pair were expressing themselves with soapstone instead of cameras.

Kunuk bought some video equipment, hired Ungalaaq as an editor and together they began to build what would eventually become one of the most celebrated feature film production companies in the country. Ungalaaq earned recognition for his skill almost immediately.

"Within six months, in 1982, I got an award for technical producer of the year from the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC)," Ungalaaq recalled. "That's the time that I accepted that I could do more."

In 1996, after several years of packaging short documentaries and interview-based programs for television through IBC, the friends embraced filmmaking..

"We wanted to share something for the wider public and that's the time that we shifted to the film industry," Ungalaaq said.

A grandmother's words

Iglulik had no television when Ungalaaq was growing up, but his grandmother Martha Ungalaaq had already prepared him to share stories on screen.

"When I was a little boy my grandma used to tell stories without television," he said. "My grandmother's mind was like a television to me. Every time when she used to tell stories it was like she was turning on the television. That's how I see it from my point of view."

His grandmother shared the story of Ungalaaq's grandfather, Phillip Ungalaaq, who was sent to Hamilton after he contracted tuberculosis in the 1950s.

"He was sent out before I was born," Ungalaaq said. "So, this (Genie Award) has been dedicated for my grandfather and for everybody who has experienced that."

Ungalaaq plans to display his trophy at the local high school, where he works for the Nunavut government as a student counsellor. He hopes to inspire students to pursue careers in the film industry.

"I started to accept myself as an actor and I can extend that to other people who want to become an actor," he said. "In the film industry there's all kinds of jobs that you can grab onto. There's a camera person, editors, sound man, makeup artist – there's all kinds of good things out there."

This spring Ungalaaq is reading over three scripts. The trilingual actor is not limiting himself merely to Inuit parts.

"I don't want to sit in one place as an individual character (working in) Inuktitut all the time. I might as well start something else," he said. "I can be anything. There's all kinds of acting parts. There's action parts, love stories -- there's all sorts and I can do them all. I cannot sit in one seat all the time. I love to experience something from one end to the other."