Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner Trilogy

Please note that the following films are not appropriate for the classroom.

Atanarjuat - The Fast Runner is Canada's first feature-length fiction film written, produced, and acted by Inuit, and has won multiple awards, including "Best First Feature Film" from Camera d'or, Un Certain Regard's official selection for Cannes 2001, and Canada's official selection for Foreign Language Oscar. Atanarjuat is situated in the small Arctic community of Igloolik, and the story is part of local oral tradition. From the film's website:

Igloolik is a community of 1200 people located on a small island in the north Baffin region of the Canadian Arctic with archeological evidence of 4000 years of continuous habitation. Throughout these millennia, with no written language, untold numbers of nomadic Inuit renewed their culture and traditional knowledge for every generation entirely through storytelling.

Our film Atanarjuat is part of this continuous stream of oral history carried forward into the new millennium through a marriage of Inuit storytelling skills and new technology.
Atanarjuat is Canada's first feature-length fiction film written, produced, directed, and acted by Inuit. An exciting action thriller set in ancient Igloolik, the film unfolds as a life-threatening struggle between powerful natural and supernatural characters.

Atanarjuat gives international audiences a more authentic view of Inuit culture and oral tradition than ever before, from the inside and through Inuit eyes.

For countless generations, Igloolik elders have kept the legend of Atanarjuat alive to teach young Inuit the danger of setting personal desire above the needs of the group.
The tale of making the film is itself made up of many stories...

Since the release of Fast Runner, the producers have filmed two sequels: The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, set in Igloolik in 1922, follows the story of the community's last great shaman, Avva, as he and his family are forced to choose between their ancestors' way of life and Christianity. Before Tomorrow, set in 1840, follows a small boy and his grandmother as they are caught between the harsh arctic wilderness, and first contact with the outside world.

Although not appropriate to screen with students, these films provide a poignant glimpse into Inuit history and cultural traditions. All three are available for free streaming download!