THE JOURNALS OF KNUD RASMUSSEN

Director: Zacharias Kunuk, Norman Cohn
Cast: Leah Angutimarik, Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq, Kim Bodnia, Jakob Cedergren
Run Time: 115 minutes
Country: Canada
Language: Inuktituk, Danish with English subtitles
Rating: Not yet rated

Zacharias Kunuk's first feature film, ATANARJUAT (THE FAST RUNNER), took audiences by storm and won many awards, including the prestigious Caméra d'Or at the 2001 Festival de Cannes and the Best Canadian Film award at the Toronto International Film Festival®. The lyricism and artistry of the truly innovative ATANARJUAT is matched if not surpassed in Kunuk's follow-up (co-directed with Norman Cohn), THE JOURNALS OF KNUD RASMUSSEN, Opening Night Gala of the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival.

Destined to be equally venerated for its cinematic aesthetic and cultural significance, the film veers away from mythical storytelling into more historical terrain, setting its story in 1922 Igoolik, where one of the last great shamans and his daughter struggle to find a balance between their shamanistic traditions and the influence of Christianity that is infiltrating their land.

Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen, born in Greenland in 1879, was the first person to cross the Northwest Passage by dogsled, and it is through this historical figure that the clash between civilizations is related in the film. Kunuk and Cohn's sensitive and inquisitive lens intimately captures a way of life on the cusp of change; gorgeous scenes depicting igloo building, storytelling and song and dance contain both an exquisite observational quality and a poetry that evokes the supernatural ethereality of traditional Inuit culture.

At once a tale of loss and survival, change and tradition, history and contrasting values, THE JOURNALS OF KNUD RASMUSSEN takes the oral storytelling form so integral to Inuit peoples and translates it into the powerful medium of film. Not to be missed.

"The Journals of Knud Rasmussen represents the very best in Canadian cinema - inventive, dramatically rich and culturally resonant storytelling. It totally fulfils the promise of THE FAST RUNNER while standing very much on its own as a cultural document of Inuit life and a beautiful story that will speak to all audiences who see the film."

Noah Cowan , Co-Director, Toronto International Film Festival