Iqaluit (film)

Iqaluit
Directed by	Benoît Pilon
Produced by	Robert Lacerte Bernadette Payeur
Written by	Benoît Pilon
Starring	Marie-Josée Croze François Papineau Natar Ungalaaq
Music by	Robert Marcel Lepage
Cinematography	Michel La Veaux
Edited by	Richard Comeau
Running time	102 minutes
Country	Canada
Language	French Inuktitut English
Budget	$4.5 million

Iqaluit is a 2016 Canadian drama film directed and written by Benoît Pilon and starring Marie-Josée Croze, François Papineau and Natar Ungalaaq. The film was shot in Iqaluit, Nunavut, which provided its title.

Carmen is a French Canadian woman whose husband Gilles is in working in Nunavut and is injured in a workplace accident. She travels north to see him, and discovers his ties with the Inuit community. She also meets an Inuit man, Noah. Gilles dies, and Carmen learns he had fathered an illegitimate child in town.

Director Benoît Pilon wrote the screenplay, claiming he had the story in mind for nine years. A budget of $4.5 million was assembled with help from Telefilm Canada and Bell Media. Pilon announced the casting of Marie-Josée Croze in summer 2015, with the cast also featuring Inuit actor Natar Ungalaaq, whom Pilon had previously worked with on the 2008 film The Necessities of Life. Christine Tootoo was a novice actress from Rankin Inlet.

Filming began in Iqaluit on 20 August 2015, with 30 crew members from Montreal and 20 Inuit crew members. Moving the 10 tons of film equipment posed great obstacles, travel and accommodation costs were anticipated to be high, and temperatures during production were expected to be volatile. Plans were to film in Northern Canada for 26 days and in Montreal for one day.

During production, Daniel Justice, leader of First Nations and Indigenous Studies in the University of British Columbia, complained about a Facebook post from crew member Pascale Arpin seeking fellow-Iqaluit residents to eat a seal for the film. The concern was that this amounted to cultural exploitation.

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