Made entirely in the North, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, 2001, is the first feature film written, directed, and acted in the Inuit language, Inuktitut. Inuk director Zacharias Kunuk has referred to the trilogy it belongs to as reflecting "four thousand years of oral history silenced by fifty years of priests, schools, and cable TV." Paying tribute to the power of historical Inuit legends, in Atanarjuat Kunuk explores the themes of love and community through the story of a shaman's curse that results in betrayal, rivalry, and revenge. Today, the film is screened in the context of current resistance movements across the North, of a burgeoning politics of self-determination, and of the controversies around the denigrating depictions of Inuit cultures and peoples that persist within dominant settler rhetoric.

In order to achieve historical accuracy about Inuit cultural practices suppressed by colonial authorities, elders were extensively consulted throughout the making of the film. The situated knowledges gained in the process led to an intricate interweaving of narratives, voices, and elements of the spirit world in an almost-anthropological testament to ancient lifeways. Kunuk's forensic attention to detail allows the film to operate powerfully within the rich storytelling traditions of the Inuit. The filmmaker also lodges the cautionary tale of Atanarjuat squarely within contemporary discourse about global warming, making the film and the knowledges it depicts directly pertinent to the urgent worldwide task of reestablishing natural balance on the planet.

Atanarjuat is a powerful interruption to dominant narratives and widespread misconceptions about the cultures and traditional practices of the North.

- Pip Day