Zacharias Kunuk

Four Inuit families build a qaggiq, a large communal igloo, to mark the approach of spring with singing and games. A young man woos a girl but her parents are in disagreement over whether he shall get to marry her.

For the Igloolik Inuit, summer is the time of Nunaqpa, 'going inland,' that is, hunting for caribou to get sufficient meat provisions for the cold winter ahead. During a summer in the 1930s, two Igloolik families go hunting, while an old couple awaits their return.

As summer ends near Igloolik in the 1930's, three families build a saputi to trap fish going upriver for the winter. The days are getting shorter and young people daydream, while waiting for fish to come. But nature is not always predictable.... [Third Isuma recreated fiction, 1993.]

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.

Inuk filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner) returns with this Arctic epic inspired by the classic John Ford western of the same name, about a vengeful husband who sets off in pursuit of the violent men who kidnapped his wife and destroyed his home.

Director Zacharias Kunuk explores Sirmilik National Park, near the Nunavut community of Pond Inlet, through the voice of an Inuit elder. Winner "Best Short Documentary" 2012 Genie Awards.

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.

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.

Two isolated families meet for a summertime celebration. Food is abundant and the future seems bright, but Ningiuq, a wise old woman, sees her world as fragile and moves through it with a pervasive sense of dread. Ningiuq and her grandson Maniq are dropped off on a remote island, where, every year, the family dries the catch and stores it for winter. The task is soon finished. As summer turns to fall, they wait in vain for the others to pick them up.

After a mysterious death, Kaujak and Sapa are separated despite being promised to each other at birth. With the help of spirit guides, efforts are made to restore harmony in this Arctic fairy tale set in an Inuit community.

Anna is nervous when she and her son, Tomas, arrive in the small, close-knit community of Igloolik, in the Canadian Arctic.

1961. In Kapuivik, an Inuit man named Noah Piugattuk and his compatriots are visited by a white man who says they have to move to a reservation.

Island of Haida Gwaii, northern Canada, 19th century. During a fishing gathering, Adiits'ii commits an unfortunate act. Tormented, he runs away to the wilderness as his mind embraces madness.

Inuit memories and experiences of shamanism, and oral histories about the last shamans practicing in the region of Igloolik, Nunavut. Interviewees range from young people to elders and politicians, but they all share a belief that things happen, and that shamanism is still a living religion.

A group of Nunavut elders travel to five museums in North America to see and identify artifacts, tools and clothing collected from their Inuit ancestors. Directed by Zacharias Kunuk and Bernadette Dean.

Zacharias Kunuk tackles the subject of the High Arctic Relocation from an Inuit point of view in the documentary Exile. In 1953, Inuit families were forcibly relocated to the uninhabited and inhospitable high arctic, 1500 kilometres north of their traditional homeland of Nunavik, in northern Québec. The goal of the move was to extend Canadian claims of sovereignty to Ellesmere Island. As a result, Inuit people were forced to endure the pain of families torn apart and many years of hardship. With devastating first-person accounts of survival, the trail of broken promises and shameful practices of the government and the RCMP, this powerful documentary captures the long-standing effects of these events from the perspectives of the people who were forced to endure them.

From the Unikaatuatiit (Story Tellers) Series. A film by Isuma Productions.

In an increasingly urban nation, Canada’s national parks are a treasured escape into extraordinary beauty and rugged wilderness. If the Group of Seven were an introduction to the landscape’s majesty, National Parks Project is the next logical chapter. Fifty-two contemporary artists from across the country, whose talents are as diverse as the parks they set out to explore, used their surroundings as a source of inspiration to blend musical and cinematic skills into collaboratively crafted vignettes. Epic in its ambition to celebrate these locales during Parks Canada’s centennial year, this omnibus film resonates with the knowledge that our unprotected land is more vulnerable than ever. Including films by Zacharius Kunuk, Peter Lynch, Sturla Gunnarsson and John Walker, and music by Sarah Harmer, Sam Roberts, Cadence Weapon and The Besnard Lakes, among many others, National Parks Project is a one-of-a-kind documentary experience.

In a feature documentary, Silakut, filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk talks to people from the five Northern Baffin Communities affected by the proposed expansion of the Mary River Mine. These conversations clearly show the predicament these communities are in – being torn between wanting to support the opportunities the expanded mine brings – but also wanting to protect their environment and culture. This film was edited from the footage shot and broadcast live in May and August, 2019.

Director Zacharias Kunuk (Atanarjuat The Fast Runner) and researcher and filmmaker Dr. Ian Mauro (Seeds of Change) have teamed up with Inuit communities to document their knowledge and experience regarding climate change. This documentary, the world's first Inuktitut language film on the topic, takes the viewer "on the land" with elders and hunters to explore the social and ecological impacts of a warming Arctic. This unforgettable film helps us to appreciate Inuit culture and expertise regarding environmental change and indigenous ways of adapting to it.