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Atanarjuat the Fast Runner

Screening: Monday 21 May, 6:00pm

Atanarjuat the Fast Runner (Zacharias Kunuk, Canada 2001)

Atanarjuat the Fast Runner is the first-ever screenplay written in the Inuit language, Inuktitut — and the first time's a charm. Shot on DV — and looking terrific due to the exceptional light so near the North Pole — the film captures an epic story rife with rivalries, evil spirits, sex, violence, native ingenuity, harsh elements and humor…

Made by a 90% Inuit crew, the thousand-year-old tale of festering evil on the frozen tundra should find a warm welcome worldwide… This saga of two brothers whose lives are deeply disrupted by evil in the form of an unknown shaman, circa 1000 A.D., has been handed down across generations to illustrate the dangers in a harsh landscape of putting personal desire ahead of the communal good.

Authentic from the crunch of snow underfoot to the amazingly gorgeous light on the small island in the north Baffin region of the Canadian Arctic where the film was lensed to the sleds built out of caribou antlers and sinew to ingenious native garments fashioned from animal pelts, Atanarjuat positively drips with an ineffable aura of genuineness. Docu-style evidence of how the nomadic Inuit built igloos, kept water liquid in freezing temperatures, prepared and consumed food, and fashioned sunglasses that look ready for space travel, is neatly incorporated but venture is above all a strong fictional narrative full of universal archetypes honed through the ages. (Lisa Nesselson, Variety)

Written by Paul Apak Angiliriq, based on Inuit oral tradition. Photographed by Norman Cohn, With Natar Ungalaaq, Sylvia Ivalu, Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq, Lucy Tulugarjuk

(DVD, Colour, 160 mins, In Inuktitut with English subtitles, M violence, sex scenes)

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