Angry Inuk by Alethea Arnaquq-Baril is screening at The LSPU Hall on Wednesday, April 19th at 7:00pm, cash donations will be accepted for the Cultural Artists Plan for Emergencies (CAPE) Fund.

In celebration of National Canadian Film Day, the St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival (SJIWFF) and the National Film Board of Canada are partnering with REEL CANADA to present a free screening of the feature length documentary.

SJIWFF screened Angry Inuk to a sold out audience at The Rooms during their 27th annual Festival this past fall. After the overwhelmingly positive response the film received the first time around, the Festival has decided to bring it back for a one-night-only screening. The evening will start with a short documentary called Breaths by singer-songwriter and humanitarian Susan Aglukark.

In Angry Inuk, award-winning Inuit filmmaker Arnaquq-Baril captures the voices of modern-day Inuit activists as they challenge misconceptions about the seal hunt.

In an interview in the CBC, Arnaquq-Baril explained that she set out to make a historical film about the European Union’s 1983 ban on seal products from white coat baby harp seals and the drastic effect it had on the lives of Inuit. She wanted to show that the ban caused a dramatic drop in many families’ income and forced many people to re-locate.

However, during the filming of Angry Inuk the European Union proposed a new, stricter ban on the sale of seal products. Arnaquq-Baril told the CBC that she suddenly found herself making a film about contemporary Inuit activism aimed at stopping the new ban from passing. During the eight years it took to make the film, the ban ultimately passed and Arnaquq-Baril documented how Inuit concerns were ignored during the process.

Angry Inuk had its world premiere at the Hots Docs Festival in Toronto last year and won the Festival’s Audience Favourite Award.

This winter it was chosen to screen at Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival, an initiative launched by the organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival to laud some of the best contemporary Canadian film. In addition to screening at a weeklong Festival at Toronto’s Tiff Lightbox Theatre, the Canada’s Top Ten films play in several major cities across the country.

This spring Angry Inuk won the Canada’s Top Ten People’s Choice Award (beating out golden boy of Canadian cinema, Xavier Dolan’s It’s Only the End of the World). SJIWFF is bringing Angry Inuk back to town for their annual National Canadian Film Day screening just as the film finishes it’s victory lap across the country.