One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk

In 1961, Inuit hunters in the Arctic were visited by ‘the Boss’, a Canadian civil servant who brought sugar and biscuits. An interpreter relays the actual message to the eldest of the hunters, Noah Piugattuk: in order for them to get an allowance for their children, Canadian law will force every Inuit to live in a settlement. During a painful dialogue, the Boss makes it clear that they will have to relinquish their nomadic lifestyle to move to the prefab village of Igloolik.

The filmmakers’ collective Isuma, comprised of Inuit from Igloolik, shot this powerful film on the endless snowfields of Baffin Island from the Inuit perspective in order to shape their own history. Director Kunuk (Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner) has family who were part of Piugattuk’s camp. The Inuit who had to give up their autonomy in the 20th century have now found their own, imaginative manner of telling the world this story.

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