Angry Inuk
The seal hunt is polarizing, but perhaps it shouldn’t be.
Opponents to the hunt are full of sound and fury, using media and celebrities to make their case for a total ban.
But for Nunavut film director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, these vocal groups overshadow an increasingly resentful Inuit population that feels marginalized and misunderstood by those who fail to grasp the life-giving significance of the seal hunt to the people who have practiced it for centuries.
That inspired the title of her documentary, Angry Inuk.
Arnaquq-Baril joined a group of youth leaders appearing before the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples on National Aboriginal Day to give a special advance screening of her new film.
“Alethea eloquently captures the Inuit perspective of the seal hunt in her excellent, award-winning film, Angry Inuk," said Nunavut senator Dennis Patterson.
Inuit people have survived for thousands of years in the world’s most inhospitable climate. Seals are at the core of their survival.
It would be hard to find a more sustainable and humane food supply. The animals roam free until their last day, they are hunted minimally compared to their population and they are valued as a key source of nutrition, all the while providing warmth and prosperity through their fur.
Meanwhile meat imports from the south come with sky-high prices and Northern communities languish in an increasingly normalized state of crisis.
"The film tells the true story of an industry and a people that have been adversely affected for decades after being severely maligned by mainstream media reports rooted in ignorance, and a misguided European Union regulation banning the import of Canadian seal products," said Senator Patterson.
Indeed, by following lawyer and sealskin-clothing designer Aaju Peter from her Arctic workshop to the streets of Scandinavia to the European Union Parliament in Brussels, Arnaquq-Baril’s film makes a powerful case for revisiting the ban on seal hunting, as well as challenging the morality of a society that places animal rights above human rights.
Angry Inuk won the Audience Award at the 2016 Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary film festival held yearly in Toronto. It will be released this fall.
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Angry Inuk
The seal hunt is polarizing, but perhaps it shouldn’t be.
Opponents to the hunt are full of sound and fury, using media and celebrities to make their case for a total ban.
But for Nunavut film director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, these vocal groups overshadow an increasingly resentful Inuit population that feels marginalized and misunderstood by those who fail to grasp the life-giving significance of the seal hunt to the people who have practiced it for centuries.
That inspired the title of her documentary, Angry Inuk.
Arnaquq-Baril joined a group of youth leaders appearing before the Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples on National Aboriginal Day to give a special advance screening of her new film.
“Alethea eloquently captures the Inuit perspective of the seal hunt in her excellent, award-winning film, Angry Inuk," said Nunavut senator Dennis Patterson.
Inuit people have survived for thousands of years in the world’s most inhospitable climate. Seals are at the core of their survival.
It would be hard to find a more sustainable and humane food supply. The animals roam free until their last day, they are hunted minimally compared to their population and they are valued as a key source of nutrition, all the while providing warmth and prosperity through their fur.
Meanwhile meat imports from the south come with sky-high prices and Northern communities languish in an increasingly normalized state of crisis.
"The film tells the true story of an industry and a people that have been adversely affected for decades after being severely maligned by mainstream media reports rooted in ignorance, and a misguided European Union regulation banning the import of Canadian seal products," said Senator Patterson.
Indeed, by following lawyer and sealskin-clothing designer Aaju Peter from her Arctic workshop to the streets of Scandinavia to the European Union Parliament in Brussels, Arnaquq-Baril’s film makes a powerful case for revisiting the ban on seal hunting, as well as challenging the morality of a society that places animal rights above human rights.
Angry Inuk won the Audience Award at the 2016 Hot Docs, North America’s largest documentary film festival held yearly in Toronto. It will be released this fall.