April, 2002

Interview by Michelle Svenson, Film and Video Specialist, NMAI
April 1, 2002

Growing up in Igloolik

MS: Do you mind stating your name and tribal affiliation?

ZK: Zacharias Kunuk, eastern Arctic Inuit, but we don’t go by tribal affiliation.

MS: Can you tell us a little bit about your home?

ZK: Igloolik has anywhere from 1200 to maybe 1300 people. Small town. It’s a community formed back in the late ‘50s, when the government started the settlement programs and Igloolik was just one of them. We were living off of the land like the ancestors before us and [then the government] built the health center there and the stores and the school started and we all had to go to school. Basically, I was nine years old when they dragged me to school.

I was just learning about other hunters going out by dog teams and [how they] were living in one-room sod houses, sleeping side by side. Every morning our fathers would hitch up the dogs and they would go hunting. [At that time] I just started going out with the men and learning about their dogs and how they drive the dog teams: how they go right and left and stop and go. It was my job, every time they stopped for tea, to untangle the ropes. And then the following summer my parents got the message from the government: ‘You have to send your kids to school. After all, we’re paying family allowance.’ Kids at the age of five, they have to be in school.

So I came to Igloolik in 1966. Growing up was going to school, learning about English, [and being told] ‘you don’t have to speak your language in the classroom, and every weekend there’s movies,’ but it cost a quarter to get in. So I started carving, and would sell my carvings so I could go to the movies. After two years my parents came, because they wanted to be close to us. It’s like a scheme the government brought everybody into one place [with]: ‘Send the children to school and the parents will follow.’

Later, when I was growing up in my teens, half of my community, Igloolik, was Catholic and half of it was Anglican. I was on the Anglican side and our cousins were the Catholics. The [Catholic] priests and the Anglican priests came and just divided us. My cousins on the Catholic side and us [on the Anglican side] used to fight, throw rocks at each other, and our parents would be arguing. [Iimagine] these are our families just divided in two and it was terrible...‘look at your cross, look at our cross’ and ‘our God went to heaven and your God is still on the cross.’ It was that kind of an atmosphere, and us Anglican boys, we weren’t allowed to have Catholic girlfriends or play with [Anglicans].

In that time that I was growing up, I was a sculptor, and I was really starting to be good at it [to where it could allow me to] start experimenting with different types of 35mm cameras, different brands, trying to document hunting scenes. And then one day in 1980, I heard you could own a moving picture camera. So my friend and I, we carved out bigger [sculptures] and we flew down to Montreal. I was dealing with a gallery there, and I told the gallery I wanted a video camera.

So in 1981, I bought my first video camera, a porta-pack, a 26-inch TV and a VCR. I flew back with it and I tried it out, looking at the manual and trying it out. Even though my camera had color I was getting black-and-white and I didn’t figure it out for like two months. It was just a color balance [problem]. But because we had no TV in our community, every time I put my TV on, the kids playing outside would be glued to my window.

And sometimes I would notice my house was full of kids watching TV. It’s because we kept TV out of our community twice. Back in 1975 and 1979, we voted [against TV]. We didn’t want it because there was nothing being broadcast in Inuktitut. And then the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation started in 1982. The following year, in ’83, we received one-channel TV, and after ten years we brought in the cable. Now we have 12 channels on the cable that we can watch. We can watch news on our tribe and everything else happening in the world. I remember watching the Gulf War in our living room. (Laughing in amazement.)

Watching the world from your living room. During that time I worked for Inuit Broadcasting Corporation for eight years, video-interviewing elders that talked about the good old days. I wanted to see [their stories] but there’s no footage of days they talked about. I decided I wanted to do my own projects, but the company wouldn’t allow me, so in 1991 I broke off and started a new company. Four of us started it together, Norman Cohn, Paulossie Qulitalik, Paul Apak Angilirq, and myself, the four of us; we started the first independent Inuit company.

We then learned if you’re an artist in Canada there are art grants that you can apply to, grants that you can get money to do video production right. We tapped into that. But then, as we were [progressing], in 1994-‘95, we did a television series called Nunavut:Our Land. They were half-hour episodes about the Inuit in the time of 1945-46. We made the costumes and acted in it. So we did that. And then the next thing to do was do a feature-length. But it was shocking to learn how the financing system works in our own country, in Canada. Since we have two official languages, English and French, they had the most money. It was shocking. The English [speakers] had $65 million in one fiscal year, the French had $35 million and the Aboriginal people had $2 million. With $2 million you can make a movie, but the worst of all was each project was capped at $100,000. So you would never, ever, do anything [substantial]. We had to fight all this, and it was very ugly. For us, we [finally] did change the system, and so we got to make our own, Atanarjuat.

MS: How did you fight the system for grants?

ZK: Well, we’re in the Arctic, and our Inuit are tax-paying citizens, so it wasn’t fair at all to see, ‘you pay your fair share and you get this little back.’ We just wanted equality, to be a part of the talent in the country. We wanted a slice of our pie. But if we get a slice of our pie, somebody was going to have to lose their slice. We had to be angry to get in. But that’s a long story. It took us five years to argue for our money. Afterwards, it took a year to shoot. It took another year to finish the film.

MS: What’s your ultimate goal to come out of video making?

ZK: Just the truth of what happened, because we were really damaged by Christianity. Before Christianity we didn’t know hell existed. We all knew that people went down below, but after they’ve refreshed they would return up to the day. Day-heaven. Everybody went to the day-heaven. But now, Christianity came and ‘snap,’ ‘you’re going to burn in hell if you’re bad.’ We don’t believe that. So, a lot of our cultural ways that survived for thousands of years have been interrupted and completely changed in the last fifty years. Doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense. So, just trying to prove that it doesn’t make sense. That’s my job.

Atanarjuat/The Fast Runner

MS: I wanted to start by asking you about your experience here in New York for the Fast Runner. Do you want to describe how it’s been for you so far?

ZK: Getting good reviews and every two screenings that we’ve had sold out. Good questions. Terrific.

MS: What kind of questions were you asked?

ZK: After a while they started to sound the same. How do you manage the equipment in the cold weather? And the fast runner-did he really run fifteen miles? What’s Igloolik like? Do they still live like what they see in the movie?

MS: What do you think the best question you received has been?

ZK: My best question was 'What did you like the most about the film?'

MS: And what was your answer?

ZK: My answer is-when we have a camp, and it’s all set up; all the cameras, all the sound systems are checked--the moment I call the actors to come on set, and they start coming over the hill in their costumes and I’m just imagining ‘That’s how it must have looked!’ That was my greatest moment.

MS: And will you tell us the history behind the story of ‘the Fast Runner,’ is it a traditional story from your community?

ZK: Yes. We live on an island that we’ve inhabited for over 4000 years and this story has been passed down from generation to generation. When we were growing up it was a bedtime story for us. When Christianity came, they didn’t allow us to do drum dancing or storytelling. [They told us] ‘These acts are the work of the devil’ and it sort of died. After we brought in television and cable, now everybody’s glued to the tube. And that’s where we wanted to be, so our little company started to bring back the storytelling. And there are a lot of other Inuit trying to get back our culture too, in different ways. We’re just doing our portion in video.

MS: The making of Atanarjuat was a collaborative production, yes? Can you describe the roles?

ZK: Well, we don’t work like [they do] in film, like how they do down here [in the U.S.], where you have a director, an assistant to the director, and then another assistant to that director. We don’t work like that. All the heads come together, we talk about what it’s going to be like and understand each other at length; if we’re going to do a scene where tents are--we ask each other ‘Are they right?’ It’s everybody’s job to get it right, and so we all talk about it: ‘Should that be there?’ ‘No-I think it should be there. Oh, let’s get Anele to tell us where it is.’ (Chuckle.) We just work like that.

And of course, all the actors come from our own little community, and you just tell them when they have to get into their characters and they do. I have very little directing to do. Because the script is already written and people know what to do. I just tell them ‘start’ and ‘stop’ and ‘wrap’ and that’s about it.

MS: Has the success of the film helped your community in any way?

ZK: Yes, it did. It seems like we had to get out of our own country to get recognized. But that’s okay.

MS: And do you have your next project lined up?

ZK: Yes, this summer. We’ve been researching this project where, again, we want to touch on shamanism a little bit...we touched upon it already, and it was a very [controversial] subject. It still is. We want to touch [on] it more, but where Christianity comes in and the misunderstandings that took place--especially how they translated the Bible to us. It destroyed our culture, and I want to show how it happened in my area.

MS: If you were introducing the film to the audience, what would you say?

ZK: If you’ve only heard about Inuit people, this is it--this is what the Inuit past is all about. There’s no outside influence about it. There are no Europeans in it. It’s all Inuit. It’s fabulous because Inuit have always been put in the background as extra actors. And if they speak Inuktitut, it didn’t mean anything, it was just a part of the show. Seal oil lamps--how they burn, nobody cared. They could be touching the Olympic torch and nobody would care. I was noticing a lot of this when I saw films about the North. We’re just background--who cares? We do.

Video Making and Community

MS: What do you prefer, or if you have a preference at all, of documentary methods or fictional?

ZK: I prefer documentary, but I wouldn’t call it documentary. It’s also fictional. You’re recreating the past, so it’s both. When our earlier work was just starting to come out, they used to call it docudrama. Half documentary, half drama.

MS: Do you prefer video, especially digital, to film?

ZK: I’ve always worked with video, from 1981. It’s an amazing tool. When we go into interviews, especially to elders, and you point a camera at them and start asking them questions, they’re going to tell the truth. And that’s exactly what we want [to capture on video]. And after [shooting], you can look at it right away. With film, from where I am, I have to send it out and then wait two weeks for my rushes. That’s an ailment.

MS: Have you seen other works, say documentaries, which were done in the past of Arctic peoples and culture, like Nanook of the North, and how do you feel about them?

ZK: Robert Flaherty did his piece 400 miles south to my community and I’m really glad that he did it because he recorded that culture. I would have comments because he’s a filmmaker. Of course he set up scenes, but I’m happy for these documents. I’d be happy if somebody else would make another Atanarjuat from a different point of view. We’re just one little group doing this and there’s not enough of us, so we have no problem with them.

MS: How do you think the films or the videos have affected your community?

ZK: In our part-time, we’re always trying to do something more…ambitious...How do you call it?...We’re just trying to climb up the ladder. We put the whole community to work. Because it’s a cold climate, we have to use the caribou clothing, because they’re still the best. Ladies who still know how to make these clothes sew them for us. The down jackets, they’re no good. So everybody has to know all these things. All the ladies work sewing up the caribou clothes and all the men make the props, the harpoons, the bows and arrows and anything you want, [the community makes.] We’re becoming the same [as] people who lived on the land.

MS: And is the language still being passed down to the younger generations?

ZK: Inuktitut language is the first language in Nunavut. In my community, now, when kids go to school for the first time, in the first three years they learn Inuktitut: how to write it, how to speak it. We feel that, after four years, we planted the seeds enough before they learn English.

MS: And your films are also in your Native language as well.

ZK: Yes, because our first audience is the Inuit themselves. It’s very challenging when we do feature-length because there are [elders] that are viewing it on the screen and one slight mistake we make, they all notice it. So we have to do everything right.

MS: Are the children also taking interest in learning the art of video making?

ZK: Children right now are very interested in our movie, because for the first time, it’s in their language. It’s not Arnold Schwarzenegger, blowing people’s heads away. Now it’s Atanarjuat. It’s a story that kids are even playing, like playing some scenes out. I even get feedback from parents. One time a parent told me that he had been looking for his kids and he couldn’t find them. When he found them outside, they were playing tent and he could hear they were playing ‘Atanarjuat.’ That’s cool.

MS: Have you also seen the works of other First Nation filmmakers, like in Latin America and here in North America? And do you relate to their styles of storytelling?

ZK: I hope [to see more]. Every time I get asked, "Who’s your favorite Native director?" I stumble because I’m way up North, and I hardly know anybody, it’s just us. I’ve seen films done by some of our Canadian filmmakers, like Alanis Obomsawin. I’ve seen and know her work. I don’t know too many.

MS: Do you think you’ve changed at all as a person or evolved as a video-maker? And how so?

ZK: The only time I change is when I do these tours, and doing interviews, on radio and talking to reporters and travelling from here to there. That’s the only time I change. My head is still back home. I want to get on my [sled] and go hunting and just ride the land. That’s where my head is all the time. It hasn’t changed me.

MS: You say you’ll be going home this week. Will you be able to stay home for a while?

ZK: I have two weeks reserved in April so nobody can bother me. I’m going hunting (Laugh).

Image credit: Director Zacharias Kunuk - photograph courtesy of Norman Cohn