Three Thousand

“My father was born in a spring igloo—half snow, half skin. I was born in a hospital, with jaundice and two teeth.” With quiet command, the young Inuk artist Asinnajaq plunges us into a sublime imaginary universe—12 minutes of luminescent, archive-inspired cinema that recast the past, present and future of Inuit in a radiant new light. Delving into the NFB’s vast archive, she casts a net across the complicated history of Inuit cinematic representation, harvesting fleeting truths and fortuitous accidents from a range of sources—newsreels, propaganda, ethnographic docs, as well as work by Inuit filmmakers. Two Inuit children peer with startling immediacy through a colonial lens. Decades later, other children hastily look away from an intrusive camera. Later still, Asinnajaq’s own grandmother fashions sea lyme grass into a basket, at ease under the tender gaze of documentarian Jobie Weetaluktuk, the Director’s father. Part conjuror, part seamstress, Asinnajaq fuses contemporary sensibilities with the economic aesthetic of her ancestors, overlaying a quilt of hand-drawn and CGI animation with shimmering fragments of historic moving image. In reimagining the archive for a new century, she looks to a future of vast and beautiful possibility. A soundtrack both intimate and mysterious features sound design by Catherine Van Der Donckt, original music by Olivier Alary and vocal performances by Tanya Tagaq and Celina Kalluk. Original animation is by Patrick Defasten.Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, Three Thousand is directed by Asinnajaq, also known as Isabella Weetaluktuk, and produced by Kat Baulu.