Since then, the idea of constitutional sincerity of the native mind has stood the test of time. One more proof of the power of this idea over the mind of the general public was screened in the Polar Cinema theatre of the recently completed Oslo Science Conference (OSC), i.e., in the form of the feature film "Inuk" by filmmaker Mike Magidson.
Or rather, in the form of the reactions of the audience to the preview of the film that will officially open at the Inuit Circumpolar Council's upcoming General Assembly in Nuuk. According to the official weblog of the OSC, “powerful and authentic” was the response of a packed cinema.
During the audience questions session following the OSC Polar Cinema preview, director Mike Magidson, screenwriter and anthropologist Jean-Michel Huctin, and lead character Ole Hammeken played along with the commonly held belief in indigenous incapability of pretense, dissimulation, and acting anything other than what we are.
“We wanted to tell the real story”, Jean-Michel Huctin said to the audience. Paradoxically, this ambition of the filmmakers meant turning from documentary to the feature film format or to this particular format in which being what you are and acting it imperceptibly blend into each other. The result is a hybrid that at the same time is deemed authentic and real.
The real story, as it is, centers round a long dog sled trip on which Inuk, a 16 year old boy who is taken away from his alcoholic mother and placed in an orphanage, gets teamed up with seasoned bear hunter Ikuma. Ikuma helps him get to grips with the negligences of a low-life upbringing and get back in contact with his true origin in the indigenous hunting culture.
About the fact that there are no professional actors in the film, Mike Magidson told the audience in Oslo: “They are ordinary people playing roles close to their real lives: teenagers from a home for neglected Inuit children and local seal hunters. This illustrates just how authentic the film is.”
There is also something about the location of the film, Uummannaq and surrounding nature in North-West Greenland, something peculiar, authentic and yet fictitious. The story of Uummannaq and its inhabitants acting themselves goes back at least to 1933 when German director Arnold Fanck shot the search and rescue drama “S.O.S. Eisberg” in this area. Half a century later, in 1986, the Danish film “Tukuma” was also shot on this location.
Since then, a number of films, several of which features Ole Hammeken as a local hunter, have been set in Uummannaq and surroundings. Besides “Inuk”, a drama-documentary entitled “Silent Snow” directed by Jan van den Berg was also pre-released at the OSC Polar Cinema. Hammeken and one or two others play roles “close to their real lives” in both films.
Moreover, impacts of climate change are staged by both productions. In “Inuk” the discourse on climate change is suggested via a flashback scene from Inuk’s early childhood that shows him experience his own father fall through treacherously thin ice and drown. Later in the film, the same thing is about to happen to Ikuma, however, now Inuk is big and strong enough to pull the unfortunate bear hunter back up on the ice and bring him to the shelter of a hunting cabin.
Yet, one of the really great merits of the film “Inuk” and its makers is that it puts climate change and aboriginal culture into perspective by linking both to the social challenges, the facts of child neglect and substance abuse, that make up the true story of many a modern day Arctic indigenous community.
As, moreover, it is beautifully shot and well edited, and as members of the non-professional cast, despite constitutional incapabilities, manage to pull off some pretty convincing performances and stand out fotogenically from the silver screen – in particular Hammeken and Gaaba Petersen as Inuk – this film appears as one of the grand clous of the OSC, not only with regard to indigenous imprints on the conference, but altogether.
This is all the more remarkable as indigenous people, to the extent that they appeared at all, did so as objects of social scientific scrutiny rather than as participants. Social science itself had barely managed to carve out a niche for itself at the natural science dominated conference. And whereas scientist of whatever sort have funding secured to go to conferences, the organizers had not managed to get space agency funding in place for indigenous participants.
True, a sizeable Saami delegation had pitched laavu tents in front of the conference venue and organized panel debates and food tasting events. Professor Ole Henrik Magga of the Saami University College and Mr. Sergei Kharyuchi of the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) both adressed the 2500 conference attendants during one of the morning plenaries. And, rounding of indigenous contributions in Oslo, the Association of World Reindeer Herders as well intervened, they too with a film that got presented by the association’s chair, Mr. Mikhail Pogodaev.
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