Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)

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Un Certain Regard - Official Selection - Cannes 2001
Winner Camera d'or for Best First Feature Film
Canada's Official Selection - Foreign Language Oscar® !
Winner of 6 Genie Awards!
Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Editing, Claude Jutra


Best Canadian Feature Film (2001 Toronto International Film Festival)
Co-Winner, Guardian Award for Best New Director (2001 Edinburgh International Film Festival)
Grand Prix of the Flemish Community for Best Film (2001 Flanders International Film Festival - Ghent)
Special Jury Prize and the Prix du Public (Festival International du nouveau Cinema et des nouveaux Medias de Montreal 2001)
CTV Best of Fest Award (Next Fest 2001 - Digital Motion Picture Festival)
Best Film (ImagineNATIVE Media Arts Festival)
Best Feature Film (2001 Sante Fe International Festival)
Best Feature Film (2002 San Diego International Film Festival)
Audience Award (2002 Newport International Film Festival)
Audience Award (2002 Lake Placid Film Forum)
Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress (2002 American Indian Film Festival)
Best Feature-Length Mountain Fiction Film (2002 Banff Mountain Film Festival)

Igloolik is a community of 1200 people located on a small island in the north Baffin region of the Canadian Arctic with archeological evidence of 4000 years of continuous habitation. Throughout these millennia, with no written language, untold numbers of nomadic Inuit renewed their culture and traditional knowledge for every generation entirely through storytelling.

Our film Atanarjuat is part of this continuous stream of oral history carried forward into the new millennium through a marriage of Inuit storytelling skills and new technology.

Atanarjuat is Canada's first feature-length fiction film written, produced, directed, and acted by Inuit. An exciting action thriller set in ancient Igloolik, the film unfolds as a life-threatening struggle between powerful natural and supernatural characters.

Atanarjuat gives international audiences a more authentic view of Inuit culture and oral tradition than ever before, from the inside and through Inuit eyes.

For countless generations, Igloolik elders have kept the legend of Atanarjuat alive to teach young Inuit the danger of setting personal desire above the needs of the group.

The tale of making the film is itself made up of many stories...


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Media on this Channel

  • eider parka

    uploaded by: IsumaTV

    canal: Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)

    This unusual parka is made of King Eider duck skin and covered in feathers. It was worn by Atanarjuat's arch-rival, Oki, during the attack on Atanarjuat's camp and subsequent chase across the sea ice. The parka floats in water!

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    uploaded date: 15-10-2009

  • Amauti

    uploaded by: IsumaTV

    canal: Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)

    The amauti (woman's parka) has a deep hood at the back in which babies and children are placed. In the film, this beautiful amauti was a gift to Atuat, Atanarjuat's first wife, during their emotional reunion after his return to Igloolik following a period of exile and recovery at the camp of the shaman Qulitalik.… Leer más

    uploaded date: 15-10-2009

  • Costumes

    uploaded by: IsumaTV

    canal: Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)

    Under the dual direction of head seamstress and Igloolik elder, Atuat Akkitirq (nominated for a Genie Award in Achievement in Costume Design), and a group of highly-skilled local seamstresses created the magnificient clothing worn by the characters in the film.

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    uploaded date: 15-10-2009

  • Filmmaking Inuit Style

    uploaded by: IsumaTV

    canal: Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)

    Atanarjuat was filmed with an all-Inuit cast in Inuktitut on location under extreme conditions. To achieve this on a modest yet professional $1.9 million budget required serious arctic know-how. Igloolik Isuma Productions Inc.… Leer más

    uploaded date: 15-10-2009

  • Atanarjuat, the Fast Runner

    uploaded by: IsumaTV

    canal: Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner)

    Un Certain Regard - Official Selection - Cannes 2001
    Winner Camera d'or for Best First Feature Film
    Canada's Official Selection - Foreign Language Oscar®!
    Winner of 6 Genie Awards!
    Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Editing, Claude Jutra

    Best Canadian Feature Film (2001 Toronto International Film Festival)… Leer más

    uploaded date: 15-10-2009