Professor’s documentary explores environmental effects on Inuit community

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — One night in late 2019, Kirk French and his creative team were sitting around celebrating their just-completed documentary, “Land and Water Revisited.”

When talk eventually turned to their next project, French, assistant professor of anthropology and film production/media studies at Penn State, jokingly proposed a revisitation of Robert Flaherty’s “Nanook of the North,” the 1922 silent film about an Arctic Inuit family considered by many to be the first commercially successful documentary.

Once French learned the film was approaching its 100th anniversary, the idea suddenly made a lot more sense.

“And when I reached out to the community and they showed real interest, I thought, ‘Well, maybe we’ll try to do this,’” he said.

Five years and a few pandemic-induced interruptions later, French and his crew have completed "A Century After Nanook," a 90-minute documentary detailing the devastating environmental and cultural changes that have taken root over the last century in Inukjuak, the Inuit village in northern Quebec where Flaherty filmed “Nanook.”

On Saturday, March 1, State College’s State Theatre will host a public screening of “A Century After Nanook” at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free, but registration is required at the theater’s website.

The event will include a short introduction by French, a ceremonial lighting of the qulliq (a traditional Inuit oil lamp), Inuit throat singing, and a post-screening Q&A featuring five Inuit leaders from Inukjuak.

In addition to the screening, the Penn State Climate Consortium’s February Climate Conversations Café will host the visiting Inuit leaders for the talk, "Adapting to the New Arctic: A Conversation with Inuit Leaders from Inukjuak in Northern Quebec," on Friday, Feb. 28, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Hintz Family Alumni Center. The event is free and open to the public, but all attendees must register.

Also, the Matson Museum of Anthropology is hosting an exhibit dedicated to the Inuit of Inukjuak and “A Century After Nanook” in the first-floor display cases of the new Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building. Barbara Rolls, professor and Helen A. Guthrie Chair of nutritional sciences, loaned several Inuit carvings to the Matson for the exhibit.

A few months ago, French screened “A Century After Nanook” for the residents of Inukjuak. The film, which French produced with Emmy-winning filmmaker Neal Hutcheson and Inukjuak resident Sarah Samisack, shows how the community has sought to maintain their culture in the face of numerous adversities, from the devastating effects of climate change on their icy landscape, to serious drug and alcohol issues among the population, to the lingering pain caused by decades of systematic abuse at the hands of the Canadian government.

“For them, it’s been one nightmarish trauma after another that’s created real cultural change that has caused deep emotional wounds,” French said. “While we want to show the environmental issues and the suffering of the community, we also want to show the resiliency of this community. It’s a story of survival and adaptation in the Arctic, one of the hardest places in the world to live.”

The film is French’s follow-up to his first feature-length documentary, "Land and Water Revisited," itself a look back at “Land and Water: An Ecological Study of the Teotihuacan Valley of Mexico,” the 1962 documentary by the late William T. Sanders, former Evan Pugh Professor of Anthropology, examining the environmental challenges facing communities in Mexico's Teotihuacan Valley. It was nominated for a Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award in 2022 and aired on PBS stations throughout the country.

With “Nanook,” French realized he had another opportunity to explore modern-day issues faced by an Indigenous community — this time in the frigid Arctic north.

Once French learned no one else was doing a similar project, he got to work, cold calling members of the Inuit community and securing a $30,000 seed grant from Penn State’s Institute of Energy and the Environment.

French was set to travel to Inukjuak in the summer of 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to those plans. Undeterred, he sent the Inuit community members some cameras and encouraged them to start the project themselves.

“We shipped camera equipment up there, but then we realized they could also just use their phones,” said French, who runs the Department of Anthropology’s CORVA (Community-Oriented Research in Visual Anthropology) Studio Lab. “That really made it hyper collaborative. So much of the footage of the film — I think it’s about 30% — is community footage they shot, interviews they did, B-roll that they took. About 15 different people from the community took part in filming — that’s a true community project.”

French finally made it to Inukjuak in July 2021, then returned in June 2022 to film the 100th anniversary celebration of “Nanook of the North’s” release. He was the only non-Inuk on the festival’s planning committee.

While the original “Nanook of the North” has been criticized for Flaherty's portrayal of the Inuit people, French quickly learned the residents of Inukjuak are by and large big fans of the film.

“They’re very proud of being the first group broadcast in that way to the world, because someone thought their way of life would be of great interest to the public — and not just their culture, but their community,” French said. “That pride outweighs these tinges of prejudice and racism, because for the most part Flaherty is capturing the way things were done that they don’t do anymore, such as the way they make kayaks. For me, it’s been a huge learning experience; it’s changed my view of the film. These experiences have been so rewarding, both professionally and personally.”

French said he plans to continue his relationship with Inukjuak’s residents. Recently, he worked with Mayes Memorials in Lemont to create a granite gravestone for Allakariallak’s — Nanook’s real name — burial place, which had never been marked.

Later this year, the film will air on PBS affiliates and Canada’s CBC and APTN (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network). French said he hopes its themes of resiliency in the face of extreme hardship strike a chord with viewers.

“Humans find a way to get through the day by finding ways to adapt — actually it’s culture that allows us to do that,” he said. “The community of Inukjuak just built the northernmost hydroelectric dam in the world. They went from 1.2 million liters of diesel burned a year to almost zero — they’re electricity is now 99% renewable. It’s such a positive message. Since they have been able to substantially lower their carbon footprint and contribute to a cleaner world, all while living in such an extreme environment, it kind of gives you a real sense of, ‘Man, if they can find a way, maybe we can, too.’ I hope people walk away from the film inspired.”