One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk

Set in 1961 in Kapuivik, on an island in the Canadian arctic, One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk depicts a pivotal day in the life of an Inuit seal hunter. While out on a hunting trip with his community, Noah is visited by a white man known as Boss, who insists he must move his family to a settlement. A long and fraught conversation ensues, mediated by an Inuit translator. This engrossing three-way exchange, full of misunderstandings and humourous mistranslations, is brilliantly acted and a poignant depiction of the colonising process.

‘I wanted to look at the moment that they [Inuit] were told to move. They were saying, ‘We don’t want to go anywhere. We don’t want to move.’ But they were told they had to… [Noah Piugattuk] was a unique man who lived all his life on the land. He ran on the bouncing ice. He was the walrus hunter. He saw the hunting of whales for fat so that they could light up the streets of London, which killed most of the whales, and then us Inuit were forbidden to hunt them. Then he ordered a bowhead to be harvested before he died, and there was a big controversy with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans—but he got his wish. He was a very important man for us.’

Zacharias Kunuk, Director