IQALUIT
When filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril set out to make Angry Inuk, she did not intend to take eight years, but what began as a historical account of European and American bans on seal in the 1980s turned into an up-to-the-minute account of a battle that is far from over.
Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, director of the film Angry Inuk, on the ice in Pangnirtung during the making of the film. - photo courtesy Qajaaq Ellsworth |
The documentary, as the synopsis states, "interweaves the reality of Inuit life with the story of their challenge to both the anti-sealing industry and those nations that mine resources on Inuit lands while simultaneously destroying the main sustainable economy available to the people who live there."
Angry Inuk, which screened at Toronto's Hot Docs Film Festival April 28 to May 8, won the audience award and took home a $25,000 prize to be used to market the film.
The National Film Board is Angry Inuk's distributor. A strategy is being developed with the aim of reaching as many non-Inuit as possible in the United States and Europe.
Arnaquq-Baril spoke with Nunavut News/North from Toronto shortly before returning home to Iqaluit to resume work on another film, this one about the Kugluktuk Grizzlies, being shot in the capital.
Nunavut News/North: I'm wondering if there was an initiating moment or an experience that set you off on what I understand was an eight-year project.
Alethea Arnaquq-Baril: I don't know that there was a specific moment. Just growing up as an Inuk, going seal hunting as a family as a kid, eating seal meat my whole life - it's just part of who I am. I think all Inuit at some point in their life become aware of the controversy that goes on in the south of Canada and the rest of the world around seal hunting. It just feels unfair. Our whole life, there's just always this thing out there.
When I travel and bring clothes with me I always wonder if there are people around me judging me for wearing sealskin or wearing fur. And I often get nasty comments. I think it's just something all Inuit have to think about and deal with from time to time. I think it's unfair. When I became a filmmaker I knew very quickly that this was a subject that I'm going to want to try to cover because I don't like that shame, that shame that people try to put on us.
N/N: Did you know in advance it would be an eight-year project?
AAB: Oh God, no ... or I probably wouldn't have started the film. I thought it would just take a couple of years. But when I started the film it was going to be more of a historical piece covering the 1983 ban that the European Union put in place and that the Americans put in place. I thought it was going to be about how we'd been affected by that ban and how we're still affected to this day. But then, as we started filming, the European Union passed a new ban on seal products and it became a development in a contemporary context, too. The whole nature of the film changed. I got sucked into the advocacy and activism around the issue because I spent some time researching it and trying to communicate with animal groups. That became part of the story. I also had a baby in there, so that's another factor.
N/N: During the making of the film, through the years, did your own attitudes change? Was there a change in you?
AAB: Oh gosh, yeah. I think making this film made me more cynical, to be honest. In a way it taught me a lot about my own culture, my own people, because speaking to Inuit on this issue I was just so humbled by their grace and their calm and the ability of Inuit to look at the big picture and what really matters on the issue ... because I get so flustered and upset at how unfairly we're treated on this issue. I was just continually impressed by elders, by my family, and hunters - their ability to speak about this with intelligence and in a calm way, without losing their temper. That just blows me away.
Talking about how Inuit express anger in a different way than the rest of the world became a big part of the film.
So I've learned more about my own culture and I've learned more about the animal groups and all the cynical tactics they use to raise money on this issue. I think I was more naive when I started out and really believed people are coming from good intentions. I think most people are, but there are definitely some people out there who are knowingly taking advantage of the situation and raising money and they fully realize the effect they're having on people who are already living in poverty and hunger on a daily basis.
N/N: When I watched the trailer I was really struck by the little white baby seal stuffed animals they were handing out. That's quite the tactic.
AAB: Thousands of them, they gave out thousands of them in the month leading up to the ban. Some of these groups have full-time staff based in the European Union parliament building. They're actually imbedded in there. They're there on a daily basis, hanging out with these people, having lunch with them, talking with them on a daily basis. How do we compete against that?
N/N: Let's skip forward to the Hot Docs Film Festival, the screening of your film, the response you've received, the reception - how did that feel? What was it like for you?
AAB: It was incredible. The very first screening I sat there and I felt like I had a rock sitting in my stomach, wondering how people would react. I really, really expected some blowback. I spend a lot of time online talking to anti-sealing advocates, debating things with them, and I'm so used to saying the same things over and over again. Clearing up misinformation, over and over. I expected some of that while I was here.
If there were people that disagreed with me or the film, in the audience, they certainly didn't say anything. The reaction was totally supportive. It was emotional. People got more emotional than I expected. People who have never been North, don't know any Inuit, they were really touched by the film and the people in the film.
I was ready for a fight. I was ready to do battle in my own way. I've had to develop a bit of a thick skin speaking out on this issue. Tanya Tagaq is certainly among those with an ability to deal with angry activists, too. We've talked with each other a lot about how to deal with these kinds of violent people. We might not see them in person but they can certainly say violent things. Having to deal with that on-line so much, I was kind of expecting it in person. I was bracing myself for it and it just didn't come.
People connected. People understood. And they were supportive. It just blew me away.
N/N: So you're feeling, in a sense, your fellow Canadians being supportive of Inuit on this issue?
AAB: Absolutely. I came out of the theatre after all of the screenings thinking: OK, things are going to change. We went from - as Inuit, trying to defend ourselves, and with our non-Inuit allies in our own communities who've been there and understand what it's like - from a small population and coming out at each screening there'd be a hundred more people who really understand the issue well and are advocating on our behalf now.
Within a few days after the first screening I was still getting nasty comments online from people who hadn't seen the film and it was an amazing thing to see people who had seen the film here in Toronto step in and debate and speak with clarity and knowledge on these issues because they'd seen the film. It was wonderful for once not to have to be the person to say: "Well, actually most commercial sealing is very humane and we eat the meat. It's been illegal to hunt white harp seal pups for 35 years." I just didn't have to do that because other people were doing it instead.
N/N: Is there anything you'd like to add?
AAB: One thing I'd love to mention is that I'm so proud of my director of photography. The film was shot by Qajaaq Ellsworth, who is also from Iqaluit. I've had so many comments this week about the gorgeous cinematography. I'm just so proud that it was homegrown talent that shot all that.
