DVDS

Angry Inuk

82 min. In Inuktitut & English w/ English subtitles. Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, dist. by Film Movement, www.filmmovement.com. 2018. DVD UPC 859686006468. $24.95. Closed-captioned. ENVIRONMENT
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This personal documentary feature pits the director and other activist Inuit against global nonprofit corporations. Arnaquq-Baril lives in Nunavut, a vast Canadian arctic territory. Her friends are shown hunting adult seals, sharing seal meat, making clothes from sealskin, and processing skins to sell through the territorial government. She states seals are not endangered, and a viable market for their skins is critical to the Inuit continuing to live off the land. According to Arnaquq-Baril, a European Union ban on the commercial sale of young harp seal products depressed the price of all sealskin for decades. When the EU passed a complete ban in 2009, the Inuit activists experienced the power of Greenpeace, the Humane Society, and the International Fund for Animal Welfare to sway delegates. Later, a lawsuit against the ban failed. The struggle to recover a fair market for Inuit seal hunters continues.
VERDICT This beautifully shot production makes a strong case to viewers. However, the argument is complex, and the group's resources are tiny and no match for the organizations that apparently intend to stop all commercial seal hunting.
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