'Inuk' at 24th PSIFF
Director Mike Magidson brings Greenland to the world with his stunning film ‘Inuk’ (2012), which screened this past week at the 24th Palm Springs Film Festival.
Filmed entirely on location in Greenland, it gives one the sense of having been there after watching this sweeping cinematic masterpiece. With its majestic extensive wide shots of icy landscapes and endless rolling glaciers, it is a visual feast for the eye, a bouquet of contrasts between the timeless and the temporal.
This is Greenland in the 21st century- a world caught between the ageless and the historical. From the sublime vastness of white ice as far as the eye can see and age-old Inuit lifestyle to contemporary Greenland city life of progressive and homogenous globalism, the film portrays a schizophrenic world stuck between the decaying lifestyle of the primordial hunter in the wild to that of modern technology and machine-dependent city man.
‘Inuk’ (played as a teen by newcomer Gaba Petersen) is a teenager living in the modern city of Nuuk growing up with the collective identity crises of the day, life torn between rushing ahead with technology and ‘progress’ and the ancient Inuit hunting ways of the past. With his father dead and his mother an alcoholic, Inuk must choose to either fall into the depths of despair or grow up and save himself. Social Services takes him out of the city and place him in the wilderness in the care of guardian and hunter Ikuma (Ole Jorgen Hammeken) who shows him the ways of traditional (though dying) Greenlandic hunting life of survival in the harshest of natural environments. From Ikuma, Inuk learns to be a true hunter and undergoes a rite of passage from childhood into manhood.
Written by Vanessa McMahon
DIRECTOR: Mike Magidson Producer: Ann Andreasen, Mike Magidson, Sylvie Barbe Editor: Cecile Coolen Screenwriter: Jean-Michel Huctin, Ole Jørgen Hammeken, Mike Magidson Cinematographer: Xavier Liberman, Franck Rabel Music: Justin Michael La Vallee Principal Cast: Gaba Petersen, Ole Jorgen Hammeken, Rebekka Jorgensen, Sara Lyberth, Elizabeth Skade Print Source: TriCoast Worldwide - www.tricoastworldwide.com
Visit the official website: http://www.inuk-film.com/
