Qallunaat! (2007)

Why White People Are Funny

Qallunaat! Why White People Are Funny is an irreverent look at Western Civilization through Inuit eyes. Inspired by the satirical essays of Zebedee Nungak, the film turns the tables on generations of anthropologists, teachers, adventurers and administrators who went North to pursue their Arctic Dreams. Now it’s their turn to be poked, prodded, examined and explained. A new generation of Inuit is ready to take on the Qallunaat at their own game. Grounded in their own traditions but educated in the South, they have a unique perspective on the culture that has come to dominate the planet. And they are not afraid to speak their minds.

Date of release
2007-10-30
TMDB
5.7 / 10 (3)
Runtime
52m
Genres
Documentary, TV Movie, Comedy
Director
Mark Sandiford

Casting

Interesting facts

Qallunaat! Why White People Are Funny is a 2006 satirical documentary film directed by Mark Sandiford and Zebedee Nungak. The documentary-style film reverses the roles between White Canadians and the Inuit of Northern Canada, highlighting the nature of the treatment of the Inuit by White Canadian society.

Production

Sandiford based the film around his experiences as a White Canadian from Montreal spending extended amounts of time living in an Inuit community, having moved to Arctic Canada in the 1980s. Nungak, who played the head of the QSI, uses his position to poke fun at the historically White-dominated study of the Inuit.

Sandiford was critical of labelling the film as a "mockumentary", stating that the activities that had been done during the film's production were suggested by the Inuit participants and based on real practices done by White researchers. Sandiford stated that the film's humour was meant to "redress a long-standing power imbalance", stating that the film could not have been made earlier as the "wounds were too raw".

The term Qallunaat (pronounced "halunat") in the film's title refers to the Inuit language term for white people, but moreover refers to a state of mind, rather than skin tone. Sandiford referred to the term as a cultural term, defining the term as "participants in mainstream Euro-American culture". John Amagoalik, who was interviewed for the film, describes the term as "people who always expect to have their way and want to do things ...

Wendy Felese, writing about Qallunaat! contextualized the film as a part of the double consciousness experienced by Nungak, the film's director, "the sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others." Nungak, who was part of a program that had taken three Inuit children (Nungak, Eric Hanna Tagoona, and Peter Ittinuar) to educate them in Ottawa for the purposes of "[expunging] them of Inuit culture and groom them to become northern le…

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