Double Bill:
Nanook of the North
& Angry Inuk
Wednesday 28 May, 17:00
London College of Fashion
Full duration: 200min
Two documentaries filmed nearly a century apart, present stunning visions of Inuit life in the Arctic. Directed by an outsider and insider, these films make a case for how cinematic authorship can shape our understanding of cultural difference and how clothing is produced, worn, and sold.
Introduction by fashion curator Cyana Madsen.
This premiere is free to attend. Booking essential.
Nanook of the North
17:00 | USA, 1922. Dir. Robert J. Flaherty, 88min, Silent film with English titlesRobert J. Flaherty’s early 'documentary' film from 1922 foretold the allure of reality television. It is a piece of operatic fiction capturing a slice of an extraordinary life, full of brutality and beauty. What was first accepted as an innocent, observational portrait of a family of Inuit in Canada's northern Quebec region, has since become known as a piece of orientalist narrative. With the backing of French fur company Revillon Frères, Flaherty spent 16 months filming a family in the dramatised and costumed throes of survival. Their metropolis is a sprawling sleet landscape full of flat plains of snow. Their home, a hand-carved igloo made of blocks of ice. The film offers a breathtaking depiction of life far outside of conventional civilization where foxes, seals, and polar bears are captured and stripped of their flesh for food and clothing. It appears to be a simple life, unchanged and unchallenged by modern advancements. Framed through an anachronistic lens (including some of the dress), Nanook displays a way of living that is symbiotic to the cadence and scarcity of the world’s natural resources.
The film will be screening with pre-recorded music.
Angry Inuk
19:00 | Canada, 2016. Dir. Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, 85min, English The fight to protect an essential element of Inuit life and livelihood, the seal hunt, in the face of attack from well-funded and powerful NGOs is captured by Inuk producer and director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril in this 2016 documentary. From the vast frozen vistas of Kimmirut, Nunavut to the halls of the European Parliament Arnaquq-Baril provides powerful evidence that sealing provides not only a traditional source of food and clothing but is a viable source of income for Northern communities in the contemporary global market. In the face of non-Inuit celebrities and animal rights groups campaigning against the hunt, the film focuses on those people directly impacted by proposed anti-sealing legislation, including Inuit hunters, youth, and lawyer and sealskin clothing designer Aaju Peter.
Angry Inuk
19:00 | Canada, 2016. Dir. Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, 85min, English The fight to protect an essential element of Inuit life and livelihood, the seal hunt, in the face of attack from well-funded and powerful NGOs is captured by Inuk producer and director Alethea Arnaquq-Baril in this 2016 documentary. From the vast frozen vistas of Kimmirut, Nunavut to the halls of the European Parliament Arnaquq-Baril provides powerful evidence that sealing provides not only a traditional source of food and clothing but is a viable source of income for Northern communities in the contemporary global market. In the face of non-Inuit celebrities and animal rights groups campaigning against the hunt, the film focuses on those people directly impacted by proposed anti-sealing legislation, including Inuit hunters, youth, and lawyer and sealskin clothing designer Aaju Peter.
Nanook of the North
17:00 | USA, 1922. Dir. Robert J. Flaherty, 88min, Silent film with English titlesRobert J. Flaherty’s early 'documentary' film from 1922 foretold the allure of reality television. It is a piece of operatic fiction capturing a slice of an extraordinary life, full of brutality and beauty. What was first accepted as an innocent, observational portrait of a family of Inuit in Canada's northern Quebec region, has since become known as a piece of orientalist narrative. With the backing of French fur company Revillon Frères, Flaherty spent 16 months filming a family in the dramatised and costumed throes of survival. Their metropolis is a sprawling sleet landscape full of flat plains of snow. Their home, a hand-carved igloo made of blocks of ice. The film offers a breathtaking depiction of life far outside of conventional civilization where foxes, seals, and polar bears are captured and stripped of their flesh for food and clothing. It appears to be a simple life, unchanged and unchallenged by modern advancements. Framed through an anachronistic lens (including some of the dress), Nanook displays a way of living that is symbiotic to the cadence and scarcity of the world’s natural resources.
The film will be screening with pre-recorded music.