ATANARJUAT: THE FAST RUNNER

Zacharias Kunuk is producer/director of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, his first dramatic feature film. He is also president and co-founder of Igloolik Isuma Productions Inc., Canada’s first Inuit-owned independent production company. Born in a sod house on the arctic tundra in 1957, Kunuk was nine years old when his family gave up their nomadic lifestyle and settled in the new Baffin Island government town of Igloolik. In 1981, already a famous carver, Kunuk sold three sculptures in Montreal and brought home the arctic’s first video camera to a community that did not yet have television. As a director in the Isuma production team Kunuk’s credits include the short dramas Qaggiq (Gathering Place, 1989), Nunaqpa (Going Inland, 1991) Saputi (Fish Traps, 1993), and Nunavut (Our Land, 1995), and documentaries Nipi (Voice, 1999) and Nanugiurutiga (My First Bear, 2001), shown in festivals and museums in sixteen countries with personal presentations at National Gallery of Canada, New York’s Museum of Modern Art, and artist-in-residencies at several Canadian universities.