Native cinema, whether from the Americas, Australia, the Pacific Islands, or any other region, plays a vital role in today’s film industry by serving as a powerful medium for storytelling, cultural preservation, and social advocacy. For far too long, Indigenous communities have been underrepresented or misrepresented in mainstream media. Native filmmakers are now reclaiming their narratives, creating authentic and diverse stories that challenge entrenched stereotypes. 

Indigenous films provide a platform for Native creators to share their truths, celebrating their communities’ complexities, resilience, and rich traditions. These films offer audiences a chance to explore the realities of Indigenous life, both past and present. 

The rise of Native cinema also empowers Indigenous creators – directors, writers, actors, and crew – who are reshaping the film industry. Their success not only leads the way for future generations but also instills pride within their communities. These artists are challenging norms and pushing the limits of storytelling, bringing fresh perspectives and cultural aesthetics that enrich the global film landscape. Their work inspires both within and beyond their communities, demonstrating the importance of representation in media.

Native cinema is also a tool for education. Often films preserve languages, traditions, and histories, acting as a cultural archive for future generations. They also shine a light on critical issues such as environmental justice, land rights, and the ongoing impact of colonialism, creating awareness and inspiring dialogue. Importantly, many Indigenous films also advocate for change, using art to call attention to systemic injustices and galvanize support for equity and respect.

Making a personal story into a universal experience is no small feat, yet NIGIQTUQ (The South Wind) achieves just that. Directed by Lindsay McIntyre, the film is based on the memories of her grandmother and shaped by the vast, enduring narratives of Inuit survival. It is an intimate reflection of cultural endurance against systemic forces of assimilation and displacement. This award-winning short captures the nuances of identity, survival, and intergenerational legacy with a delicate yet profound lens.  

Through its textured visuals, powerful performances, and thoughtful narrative, NIGIQTUQ is a great piece of work. As we dive into McIntyre’s creative process, she offers insights into honouring a family legacy while amplifying Indigenous voices – a reminder of storytelling’s significance in safeguarding and revitalising culture in the face of historical erasure.

View of the Arts: Based on your grandmother’s story, NIGIQTUQ feels personal. How did you balance this intimate, family-centered narrative with broader systemic issues such as assimilation and cultural displacement? Could you also share more about your grandmother’s story and how she has influenced your life?

Lindsay McIntyre: Because NIGIQTUQ (The South Wind) is based on a true story told to me by my grandmother, it was pretty easy to focus on what might’ve happened in the context of where and when the story took place. Certainly the whiteness of the prairies in the 1930s and stories I heard within my family informed the way that I constructed the relationships between the three characters. Generally, I make films to process things I’m dealing with, so writing, filming and editing are all authentic processes. I don’t always know the outcome when I undertake a work but I always learn something about the subject and am better for it. 

My grandmother’s story has been important to me for a long time. I’ve made 6-7 short experimental documentary films about different parts of the story, published a chapter in a book, and written a dramatic feature about it called The Words We Can’t Speak, which is very connected to this short. The feature is in development now with a goal to film in Nunavut in 2026. Of the completed works, Her Silent Life (2013) is probably the most detailed and accessible.    

VOA: The film’s visual language – muted tones and textured imagery – feels integral to its emotional impact. How do your analog film techniques help convey the contrasts between Marguerite and Kumaa’naaq’s expansive homeland and their confined new reality?

LM: A lot of the credit for the visual language is owed to my cinematographer, Wes Miron, who is an incredible collaborator. He knows my body of work well and knew what I was looking for. He brought a lot of ideas to the table and I think we were able to bring our ideas together in a way that brought the emotional journey of the characters to bear. And although we shot this short digitally, we definitely leaned on film-friendly ways of thinking about things. For example, NIGIQTUQ was shot entirely through broken glass filters which is something I have employed in previous films shot through pieces of melted glass or plastic. This helps wreck the focal attention of the lens and bring things into a less crystal clear focus. And in terms of a sense of confinement, I really wanted there to be a distinct difference between the feelings of confinement inside the house, where their expressions and feelings needed to be suppressed and controlled, and the openness and freedom of the exterior, which was as close as they could come to feeling at home and where they were able to speak Inuktitut freely.  

VOA: The letter scene, where Kumaa’naaq reads Inuk words aloud in English, is particularly striking. How did you craft this moment to underscore the emotional and cultural toll of language assimilation?

LM: This was an embodied thing for Brenda Amaklak Putulik who plays the role of Kumaa’naaq. Brenda isn’t an actor. She came on board to help me honour my grandmother’s story. We spoke at length about the purpose of this scene, the circumstances of that moment for the characters, and about the tone. One of the things that Brenda wanted to help her through that scene was for me to sit in as Marguerite on the floor, listening to her. Because I am the manifestation of my grandmother, she saw me as Marguerite and was more able to bring all the emotional resonance to bear on that scene. We only shot that once. But also, Brenda is not so far removed from a lot of similar kinds of language suppression. These kinds of things are not the distant past for Inuit. They are very present pressing issues. Inuit are still fighting every day for kids to be able to attend school in Inuktitut. And Brenda is also an Inuktitut language instructor so she is very passionate and knowledgeable about these issues and understands them implicitly.  

VOA: Kumaa’naaq’s white partner’s comment about “doing what others do” sums up the pressure to conform. How did you work with the cast to capture the nuanced and layered responses to these societal expectations?

LM: Lindsay Robinson plays the role of the policeman who is putting the most pressure on young Marguerite to conform. Much of the purpose of making this short was to explore the subtleties of this situation. I don’t think even the most evil people ever think they’re bad, and I really wanted to explore that framework. WE can see that he’s doing harm to Marguerite, but he still believes that his actions are not only justified, but beneficial. Lindsay Robinson’s performance brought this out in such a thoughtful way. He really took to heart the histories that we were dealing with and took a deep look at these calculated colonial actions. We had conversations about what these scenes were about and he brought deep care and understanding to the role. I think it was especially difficult for him because he is absolutely nothing like the character he plays, but he understood the greater importance of the message of the film.  

VOA: In the mother-daughter relationship, we see love expressed through painful compromises. What choices or challenges did you face in portraying Kumaa’naaq as both a protector and a participant in her own cultural erosion?

LM: Great question. Because this is based on a true story and I knew Kumaa’naaq (who we all called Mum) and Ray (I grew up next door to them) I had a good understanding of their then-demeanors (in the 1980s and 90s). She was small, subdued, loving, quiet, unassuming and understated. And she was a worrier. He was present, commanding, entertaining, engaged, and he unmistakably took up more space in the room. He was a storyteller. What I didn’t know, what I grappled with, was what their dynamic might’ve been like in the beginning, when they first arrived in Edmonton in the 1930s. Most of my thoughts were on Kumaa’naaq, who had several older children that were left in the north. What was that sacrifice like? Was this a better opportunity? And if so, what sacrifices were embedded in that opportunity? Did she choose to leave her community and her family? Or was she coerced? Did she really even have a choice? Could she have gone back if she wanted to? Did she know that she wouldn’t be able to speak about her family? Did she know how bad the racism might be for them? Inuit are often not very confrontational and that was something I really wanted to explore as well. Ultimately, in that context, when the police tell you to do something, you do it. The other part of it is survival. Inuit have done so much to survive in such incredible contexts over many thousands of years. I think survival is foremost on Kumaa’naaq’s mind when she is both protecting Marguerite from and propagating these colonial harms. Life is always about hard choices. I wanted to honour some of the hard choices Kumaa’naaq made to make life possible. 

VOA: The film’s intimate portrayal of Marguerite and Kumaa’naaq is profoundly moving, yet it also reflects a collective Indigenous experience. How did you navigate the tension between telling a specific story and representing a broader cultural reality?

LM: I think the best thing that can happen in filmmaking and in storytelling is when the personal becomes universal. For this piece, I honestly didn’t think much about collective Indigenous experiences, but I know well that this Indigenous story mirrors that of many others. I focussed on the story that Marguerite told me about this timeframe (she is a child in the film but she was about 75 when she told me the story) and I tried to stick to the details that I knew to be true. Her testimony is actually recorded in another film I made, Her Silent Life (2013), which is a documentary. You can hear her telling the story, right down to the letter being thrown in the garbage. The sad truth is that it is not an uncommon story, and it resonates with the stories of many other Indigenous women and children across North America and beyond. 

VOA: You’ve described the film as a reflection of survival – of body, identity, and spirit. In your view, what role does storytelling play in preserving and reviving cultural identity amidst historical erasure?

LM: Stories are all that we are. For this I will quote Sue Monk Kidd from The Secret Life of Bees.  “Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.” In Inuit community, stories are embedded in song, in practice, in law, in language and in culture. The interruption of our stories in all their embedded forms is what we are trying to undo. Many Indigenous filmmakers, artists and storytellers have taken up this work. They are looking at things from different angles, different from the ones that have been suggested and enforced. They are doing the important work of reinventing and revisioning a future that was supposed to not exist for us. In Canada we talk a lot about Reconciliation. And the Truth & Reconciliation commission took place almost a decade ago. But we haven’t spent enough time on the truth. Our stories need to be told. Told in the way that they need to be told. They need to be heard and known (where we are) and then they need to be integrated and respected (where I hope we are going) in order for us to get to a place where calculated erasure and colonial harm no longer need to be a daily concern.         

VOA: The performances in NIGIQTUQ are powerfully understated, with emotions often conveyed through silence or subtle gestures. How did you direct the actors to achieve this level of depth and nuance? Additionally, what was the casting process like for these roles?

LM: As I mentioned earlier, Brenda Amaklak Putulik, who plays Kumaa’naaq is not an actor and neither was Naomi Natseck, who plays young Marguerite. The casting process was quite different from what you might expect. Instead of doing a casting call and running auditions, I reached out to Inuit friends and family to see if there were people who would be interested in helping me honour my grandmother’s story. Brenda is one of the people who came forward and we never did an audition.

We had a conversation. It was clear that the story resonated with her and mattered to her and that she would do whatever it might take to help me tell it. And then we needed to find a little girl who spoke the same dialect as Brenda. This turned out to be her niece Naomi, and luckily, her mother Louisa was interested. I can’t say how Brenda was able to bring such a powerful nuanced performance to the film. I think that because the story is true, we all just had to do what it took to honour it. And that really changed the way we collaborated, the way we made decisions, and perhaps the way Brenda performed. One of the things that she requested for a couple of scenes which had deep emotional components, such as the letter reading scene, was for me to stand in for Marguerite. And because I am literally the embodiment of my grandmother Marguerite, when Brenda spoke the lines to me, it was easier for her to bring all of the emotional weight of the moment to really bear upon the scene.  

VOA: Assimilation is explored not through grandiose moments but through small, devastating details, such as clothing, housing, and applying for white man schooling. How did you decide on these elements to illustrate the insidious nature of cultural erasure?

LM: Lots of life is subtle. The small things make a difference. I have only got so many things that remain from Kumaa’naaq’s journey from the North to the South. Among them are beads, including decorative teeth, her uluit (women’s knives), and some clothing. I think the choices she made, even in terms of what was important to bring, speak volumes. These were the things that she deemed important, among all other options. I tried to use as many of these original artifacts as possible (Her sweater, shoes, glasses, apron. The hanging garments, the beading, the books, the doll. His books and portfolio.) These all help to bring realism and authenticity to the filmmaking and authenticity is the most important thing for me as a creator.  

VOA: Winning Best Short Live Action Film at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival and qualifying for the Oscars® puts NIGIQTUQ on a global stage. How do you hope this recognition amplifies Indigenous voices and inspires audiences to learn more about Inuit culture and history?

LM: It’s incredible to be included in this group of stories and I hope I’m not the only Indigenous storyteller on this stage right now. Ultimately, I hope it becomes easier and easier for us to tell these stories and have our voices heard. Inuit and Indigenous history is rich and deep and far more complex, established, and sophisticated than any of us have been taught in school. Who writes the histories matters. The Words We Can’t Speak, which is the connected feature drama I have in development, is a story that I want everyone to feel in their bones. This Oscar qualification can only help make this feature film and others like it a reality. 

Written and interviewed by Maggie Gogler

Featured image courtesy of Francis Cathryn Forge Project

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