The Toronto International Film Festival has programmed many films with unique visions of Canada in its previous 30 years, but possibly none as epic and dramatic as The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, this year’s opening night gala presentation.

The Inukitut-language film comes from co-directors Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn, the helmer and producer, respectively, of the Genie Award-winning Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner.

Journals sees the running man (Natar Ungalaaq) from that earlier film pausing in 1922 to witness his people’s shaman tradition be undermined, and ultimately replaced, by Christianity.

Cohn believes TIFF will make history when Toronto’s financial and cultural elite fills Roy Thomson Hall on Sept. 7 to watch the Inuit tale.

‘That two hours will be an enormously historical, unique political moment in the history of this country,’ he says. ‘They have never sat still for two hours and listened to and watched the people in our movie and heard their voices. The political impact is unavoidable.’

Journals will, technically speaking, make its world premiere at TIFF. After Atanarjuat became a Cannes favorite, taking home the Camera d’Or at the 2001 French fest, TIFF gave Kunuk and Cohn the prestigious opening night slot for their follow-up feature, beating Cannes to the punch. The announcement was made back in March, much earlier than is the norm, and two months ahead of Cannes.

But Kunuk and Cohn wanted indigenous Canadians to be the first to see the film made by and for them, and have already screened it to native audiences in Nunavut and Nunavik, and plan a wider northern tour after Toronto.

Set in 1922 Igloolik, Journals recounts the true story of the shaman Avva (Pakak Innukshuk) and his family meeting the Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen (Jens Jørn Spottag) and fellow countrymen Peter Freuchen (Kim Bodnia), a trader, and Therkel Mathiassen (Jakob Cedergren), an archeologist.

The shaman, or spiritual medium, first tells Rasmussen the story of himself and his Inuit community. Then, after a celebration, Rasmussen heads west, while the shaman takes his family and guests in search of food and refuge from a bleak winter. But, in the movie’s emotional climax, what they encounter and embrace is Christianity, which from the Inuit point of view, is tantamount to the end of history.

Danis Goulet, executive director of the annual imagineNATIVE aboriginal film and media arts festival in Toronto, praises Kunuk and Cohn for thrusting indigenous film long restricted to Northern Canada into the spotlight down south.

‘They are true trailblazers. Being at TIFF is a real success story for the indigenous community, as they can look at a film like this that was made in the Far North and yet stays so true to a specific method of storytelling,’ she says.

But as Kunuk and Cohn have also reached south for bigger budgets to make epic features, they have moved inexorably from a culture that prizes elders and oral storytelling to one that insists on production accountants and accountability. Funders on the production, the budget of which Cohn pegs at $6.3 million, include Telefilm Canada, SODEC, the Canadian Television Fund, the Quebec tax credit, and, overseas, the Danish Film Institute, Nordic Film & TV Fund, Greenland Home Rule and the Danish Broadcasting Corporation.

Kunuk singles out conditions set forth by Telefilm on the Journals shoot.

‘They required unit managers and other things we never worked with before,’ Kunuk says.

He adds that interlopers created problems for the cast, which is made up of Inuit – many of whom appeared in Atanarjuat – native Greenlanders, and Danes.

‘We also felt in this cold climate that working with a big crew is not very appropriate,’ he says. ‘This was new to us and distracted a lot of actors.’

While Telefilm’s on-set requirements may have complicated the Arctic shoot, Cohn has been a thorn in the side of Canada Feature Film Fund administrators. He insists the agency’s marketing assistance program for Canadian theatrical films discriminates against aboriginal Canadians.

‘Telefilm Canada has convinced me that they really don’t care… about this film, or about its meaning in opening the [Toronto] festival,’ Cohn says.

The currently troubled Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution, having acquired the film’s Canadian rights, agreed to release the film in southern Canada Sept. 29 with a $900,000 P&A commitment, while allowing Igloolik Isuma Productions – the handle for Kunuk and Cohn – to release the film in the North.

But getting Telefilm to help fund a northern tour has proved rancorous. At first, the agency offered up to $30,000 from an ‘alternative distribution’ envelope to support Igloolik Isuma’s P&A costs.

Cohn judged that sum derisory, and requested access to Telefilm subsidies for distribution expenses traditionally offered to established distributors.

‘When is Norman Cohn ever happy?’ sighs Ralph Holt, Telefilm’s director of operations, Ontario and Nunavut.

Holt insists Telefilm’s standard marketing funds go only to independent distributors set up for year-round business, and not producers doing one-off releases.

But Holt held out the possibility that, after negotiation, Telefilm would help finance a Northern Canada tour for the film.

‘There’s no question that we would not do this,’ he says. ‘We’re interested in seeing this film screened to those whom it is about.’

www.isuma.ca