The Amautalik (2014)

From Darkness

A lonely fisherman drifts into haunted waters in search of food and finds much more than he bargained for. Based on an Inuit folktale.

The Shaman's Apprentice

A young shaman must face her first test: a trip underground to visit Kannaaluk, The One Below, who holds the answers to why a community member has become ill.

Brother Bear

When an impulsive boy named Kenai is magically transformed into a bear, he must literally walk in another's footsteps until he learns some valuable life lessons. His courageous and often zany journey introduces him to a forest full of wildlife, including the lovable bear cub Koda, hilarious moose Rutt and Tuke, woolly mammoths and rambunctious rams.

Qalupalik

This animated short tells the story of Qalupalik, a part-human sea monster that lives deep in the Arctic Ocean and preys on children who do not listen to their parents or elders. That is the fate of Angutii, a young boy who refuses to help out in his family’s camp and who plays by the shoreline... until one day Qalupalik seizes him and drags him away. Angutii's father, a great hunter, must then embark on a lengthy kayak journey to try and bring his son home.

Grape Soda in the Parking Lot

Taqralik Partridge asks what if every language that had been lost to English — every word, every syllable — grew up out of the ground in flowers? Taqralik’s grandmother’s Scottish Gaelic and her father’s Inuktitut unfold in memories of her family, of pain, and of love.

Shaman

This animated short tells the story of a ferocious polar bear turned to stone by an Inuk shaman. The tale is based on emerging filmmaker Echo Henoche's favourite legend, as told to her by her grandmother in her home community of Nain, Nunatsiavut, on Labrador's North Coast. Hand-drawn and painted by Henoche in a style all her own, Shaman is the first collaboration between the Labrador artist and the NFB.

Somewhere in the Arctic...

A polar bear is hunted by Eskimos. But suddenly the hunt gets interrupted. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.

Neige

On the eve of summer vacation, Prune leaves her parents for the traditional "end-of-year school trip." But once she's gone, an incredible snowstorm hits the small town where her family lives. Philémon, her younger brother, then makes an astonishing discovery: an Inuit family has settled on a roundabout. The meeting of these two worlds sets the stage for a wonderful adventure.

The Legend of Sarila

Three young Inuits set off in search of a promised land to save their clan from starvation.

One Who Has Two Souls

He was called "He Who Has Two Souls". He was beautiful as a woman. And handsome as a man. He hesitated.

Lumaajuuq

This animated short is a tragic and twisted story about the dangers of revenge. A cruel mother mistreats her son, feeding him dog meat and forcing him to sleep in the cold. A loon, who tells the boy that his mother blinded him, helps the child regain his eyesight. Then the boy seeks revenge, releasing his mother’s lifeline as she harpoons a whale and watching her drown. Based on a portion of the epic Inuit legend “The Blind Boy and the Loon.”

Islet

For an Inuit fisherman, technology means absurdity. Floating out on a block of ice, he doesn't have any other choice to grab onto some flying fish to save himself.

Labrador North

This short documentary looks at the government relocation of the Labrador Inuit and the effects on their culture and social structures.

The White Dawn

In 1896, three survivors of a whaling ship-wreck in the Canadian Arctic are saved and adopted by an Eskimo tribe but frictions arise when the three start misbehaving.

Nanook of the North

This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.

The Annanacks

This short documentary depicts the formation in 1959 of the first successful co-operative in an Inuit community in Northern Québec. The film describes how, with other Inuit of the George River community, the Annanacks formed a joint venture that included a sawmill, a fish-freezing plant and a small boat-building industry.

How to Build an Igloo

This classic short film shows how to make an igloo using only snow and a knife. Two Inuit men in Canada’s Far North choose the site, cut and place snow blocks and create an entrance--a shelter completed in one-and-a-half hours. The commentary explains that the interior warmth and the wind outside cement the snow blocks firmly together. As the short winter day darkens, the two builders move their caribou sleeping robes and extra skins indoors, confident of spending a snug night in the midst of the Arctic cold!

Amarok's Song - The Journey to Nunavut

In this feature-length documentary, three generations of the Caribou Inuit family come together to tell the story of their journey as Canada's last nomads. From the independent life of hunting on the Keewatin tundra to taking the reins of the new territory of Nunavut on April 1, 1999, we see it all. The film is the result of a close collaboration between Ole Gjerstad, a southern Canadian, and Martin Kreelak, an Inuk. It's Martin's family that we follow, as the story is told through his own voice, through those of the Elders, and through those of the teens and young adults who were born in the settlements and form the first generation of those growing up with satellite TV and a permanent home.

The Snow Walker

A bush pilot in nothern Canada who with the aid of modernity thinks he can handle it all & knows it all. After reluctantly agreeing to transport a local indian girl to a medical facility his light plane crashes & they have to survive whilst finding their way back to civilization. Along the journey the man finds a new respect for the native ways as they battle to survive the elements.

Map of the Human Heart

In an Arctic village in 1931, British mapmaker Walter Russell selects 12-year-old Eskimo Avik as his guide. When the boy contracts tuberculosis, Walter flies him to a Montreal hospital, where Avik meets Albertine and is infatuated. A decade later, a grown Avik encounters Albertine again in London, where he's serving as a British combat pilot. Despite her relationship with Walter, she and Avik begin an affair.

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen

Based on the journal of Knud Rasmussen's "Great Sled Journey" of 1922 across arctic Canada. The film is shot from the perspective of the Inuit, showing their traditional beliefs and lifestyle. It tells the story of the last great Inuit shaman and his beautiful and headstrong daughter; the shaman must decide whether to accept the Christian religion that is converting the Inuit across Greenland.

Martha of the North

In the mid-1950s, lured by false promises of a better life, Inuit families were displaced by the Canadian government and left to their own devices in the Far North. In this icy desert realm, Martha Flaherty and her family lived through one of Canadian history’s most sombre and little-known episodes.

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

Based on a local legend and set in an unknown era, it deals with universal themes of love, possessiveness, family, jealousy and power. Beautifully shot, and acted by Inuit people, it portrays a time when people fought duels by taking turns to punch each other until one was unconscious, made love on the way to the caribou hunt, ate walrus meat and lit their igloos with seal-oil lamps.

Never Cry Wolf

A scientific researcher, sent on a government study: The Lupus Project, must investigate the possible "menace" of wolves in the north. To do so, he must survive in the wilderness for six months on his own. In the course of these events, he learns about the true beneficial and positive nature of the wolf species.

That Which Once Was

In 2032 an eight-year old boy, displaced by global warming, fends for himself as an environmental refugee in a hostile northern metropolis. Haunted by memories of flooding that left him homeless and orphaned, the boy forms an unexpected friendship with an Inuk ice carver who helps him confront his past.

Smilla's Sense of Snow

Smilla Jaspersen attempts to understand the death of a small boy who falls from the roof of her apartment building. Suspecting wrongdoing, Smilla uncovers a trail of clues leading towards a secretive corporation that has made several mysterious expeditions to Greenland.

Le grand solstice

Plot unavailable

Shadow of the Wolf

In the 1930s, Agaguk lives his traditional Inuit life. But one day, there is a murder in the tribe and Agaguk becomes a suspect. Soon he becomes persecuted by Henderson, a mean mountie, and he must flee through the cold winter of Northern Quebec.

The Grizzlies

In a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America, a group of Inuit students' lives are transformed when they are introduced to the sport of lacrosse.

Endless Night

Ellesmere Island, northern Canada, 1908. Josephine, a brave but naive woman, embarks on a dangerous journey through inhospitable regions in search of her husband, the explorer Robert Peary, who tries to find a route to the North Pole.

Ikingut

In the middle ages a small Greenlandic boy comes drifting with an Iceberg to a remote and superstitious settlement in Iceland and is believed to be an evil spirit by his looks. He saves a young boy from an avalanche and they become friends. The young Icelandic boy has to fight for his friends existence against the ignorant villagers, who want him imprisoned or even killed

Qivitoq

A young teacher, Eva Nygaard, arrives in Greenland from Denmark to surprise her fiancé, the Doctor Erik Halsøe, but is crushed to find he has not waited for her and he is about to be married to his assisting nurse. Eva travels to a small fishing village to await the next ship back to Denmark. There she enters into a tense and often confrontational relationship with Jens, a quiet moody Dane who manages a trading company outpost. Meanwhile, Jens is trying to persuade a Greenlander named Pavia to become a company fisherman, despite Pavia's fear of alienating his fellow villagers and upsetting the spirit, Qivitoq.

Nalujuk Night

Nalujuk Night is an up close look at an exhilarating, and sometimes terrifying, Labrador Inuit tradition. Every January 6th from the dark of the Nunatsiavut night, the Nalujuit appear on the sea ice. They walk on two legs, yet their faces are animalistic, skeletal, and otherworldly. Snow crunches underfoot as they approach their destination: the Inuit community of Nain. Despite the frights, Nalujuk Night is a beloved annual event, showing that sometimes it can be fun to be scared. Rarely witnessed outside of Nunatsiavut, this annual event is an exciting chance for Inuit, young and old, to prove their courage and come together as a community to celebrate culture and tradition. Inuk filmmaker Jennie Williams brings audiences directly into the action in this bone-chilling black and white short documentary about a winter night like no other.