Pauloosie Qulitalik

Based on a local legend and set in an unknown era, it deals with universal themes of love, possessiveness, family, jealousy and power. Beautifully shot, and acted by Inuit people, it portrays a time when people fought duels by taking turns to punch each other until one was unconscious, made love on the way to the caribou hunt, ate walrus meat and lit their igloos with seal-oil lamps.

For the Igloolik Inuit, summer is the time of Nunaqpa, 'going inland,' that is, hunting for caribou to get sufficient meat provisions for the cold winter ahead. During a summer in the 1930s, two Igloolik families go hunting, while an old couple awaits their return.

Four Inuit families build a qaggiq, a large communal igloo, to mark the approach of spring with singing and games. A young man woos a girl but her parents are in disagreement over whether he shall get to marry her.

As summer ends near Igloolik in the 1930's, three families build a saputi to trap fish going upriver for the winter. The days are getting shorter and young people daydream, while waiting for fish to come. But nature is not always predictable.... [Third Isuma recreated fiction, 1993.]