Natar Ungalaaq

Acting

Natar Ungalaaq

Born 1959-01-01 · Igloolik, Nunavut, Canada

Natar Ungalaaq is a talented filmmaker, actor and sculptor from Igloolik, NU. Ungalaaq began his artistic practice carving when he was a child using his grandparent’s tools, eventually selling his works to buy camera gear along with Zacharias Kunuk to start an Igloolik based production company known as Isuma Productions. Ungalaaq has acted and appeared in many films and television shows most notably starring as the lead Atanarjuat in Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001), which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. He made his directorial debut in 2016 with the film Searchers (2016). He is also a talented carver. Ungalaaq’s carvings are often made from stone and depict traditional Inuit imagery and practices. Ungalaaq has been known to also incorporate animal hair into some of his carvings, such as Sedna with Hairbrush (1985). Ungalaaq represents the goddess Sedna in white soapstone reclining on a rock with her fish like tail wrapping around the bottom of the stone. Sedna’s hair is made from fur and sticks out around her head, creating halo of red. In her right hand she holds a bone hairbrush. Ungalaaq’s sculptures are boldly carved with minimal amounts of negative space and with figures always seemingly caught mid-action. Ungalaaq has received many awards for his acting including ‘Best Actor’ from the American Indian Movie Awards in 2002, ‘Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role’ from the Genie Awards in 2009 and his film The Necessities of Life, or Inuujjutiksaq, was shortlisted for the 2009 Oscars under the Best Foreign Language Film category. Ungalaaq has acted, produced, directed and run cameras in countless Isuma film work. Before playing the lead role in the genre-creating, Cannes Camera D’or award-winning Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001), Natar played major roles in other Canadian and American films, including Kabloonak (1994), Glory & Honor (1998), Frostfire (1994), Trial at Fortitude Bay (1994), Sleep Murder (2004), The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006), The Necessities of Life (2008) and Maïna (2013). He has attended multiple film festivals as an actor and director including the Cannes Film Festival. Ungalaaq’s carvings have been exhibited across Canada and are housed in major institutions including the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, ON. He has been written about in multiple publications including many times in Inuit Art Quarterly and has his piece Sedna with Hairbrush on the cover of the Fall 1993 issue. Most recently, Isuma TV has been chosen as an artist collective to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale Art Festival in 2018.

Acting credits

The Legend of Sarila poster
4.9

Three young Inuits set off in search of a promised land to save their clan from starvation.

The Legend of Sarila

2013

Slash/Back poster
6.4

In a remote Arctic community, a group of Inuit girls fight off an alien invasion, all while trying to make it to the coolest party in town.

Slash/Back

2022

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner poster
6.8

Based on a local legend and set in an unknown era, it deals with universal themes of love, possessiveness, family, jealousy and power. Beautifully shot, and acted by Inuit people, it portrays a time when people fought duels by taking turns to punch each other until one was unconscious, made love on the way to the caribou hunt, ate walrus meat and lit their igloos with seal-oil lamps.

Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner

2002

The Grizzlies poster
7.2

In a small Arctic town struggling with the highest suicide rate in North America, a group of Inuit students' lives are transformed when they are introduced to the sport of lacrosse.

The Grizzlies

2019

Ski-Doo poster
NR

Ali, a teenage Inuit hip hop fan, lives in Ivujivik, a small Arctic village where nothing interests him. All of his problems seem to materialize in his father's old snowmobile, constantly breaking down. His only way out ? The famous Rich E. Murdoch, Ali’s favorite rapper.

Ski-Doo

2022

Glory & Honor poster
NR

The true story about Robert Peary's forgotten African American employee Mathew Henson who proved crucial in their race to North Pole.

Glory & Honor

1998

Kabloonak poster
7.5

In 1922 the first documentary in the genre sense came on the big screen, "Nanook of the North" (1922). Kabloonak is the story of the making of this movie for which the story was partially staged by his director 'Robert Flaherty'.

Kabloonak

1994

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen poster
5.3

Based on the journal of Knud Rasmussen's "Great Sled Journey" of 1922 across arctic Canada. The film is shot from the perspective of the Inuit, showing their traditional beliefs and lifestyle. It tells the story of the last great Inuit shaman and his beautiful and headstrong daughter; the shaman must decide whether to accept the Christian religion that is converting the Inuit across Greenland.

The Journals of Knud Rasmussen

2006

Maïna poster
6.4

Maïna is the daughter of the Innu leader Mishtenapuu, who attends a bloody confrontation between his clan and the clan of "Men of the Land of Ice." Following this confrontation, Maïna chooses a mission that will change her life. To fulfill the promise that she has made to her friend Matsii on her deathbed, she embarked on the trail of their enemies to deliver Nipki, a 11 year old boy that the Inuit have captured. But she was also taken as prisoner by Natak, the leader of the Inuit group, and forcibly taken to the Land of Ice.

Maïna

2013

Weird Sex and Snowshoes: A Trek Through the Canadian Cinematic Psyche poster
6.0

This compelling documentary explores Canadian film culture and tries to discover what defines Canadian film through interviews with notable filmmakers.

Weird Sex and Snowshoes: A Trek Through the Canadian Cinematic Psyche

2004

The Necessities of Life poster
7.5

In 1952, an Inuit hunter named Tivii with tuberculosis leaves his northern home and family to go recuperate at a sanatorium in Quebec City. Uprooted, far from his loved ones, unable to speak French and faced with a completely alien world, he becomes despondent. When he refuses to eat and expresses a wish to die, his nurse, Carole, comes to the realization that Tivii's illness is not the most serious threat to his well-being. She arranges to have a young orphan, Kaki, transferred to the institution. The boy is also sick, but has experience with both worlds and speaks both languages. By sharing his culture with Kaki and opening it up to others, Tivii rediscovers his pride and energy. Ultimately he also rediscovers hope through a plan to adopt Kaki, bring him home and make him part of his family

The Necessities of Life

2008

That Which Once Was poster
NR

In 2032 an eight-year old boy, displaced by global warming, fends for himself as an environmental refugee in a hostile northern metropolis. Haunted by memories of flooding that left him homeless and orphaned, the boy forms an unexpected friendship with an Inuk ice carver who helps him confront his past.

That Which Once Was

2011

Trial at Fortitude Bay poster
7.0

Defence attorney Gina Antonelli is sent to an Arctic village to defend 19 year-old Pauloosie, accused of committing a violent crime. Her rival, prosecutor Daniel Metz seeks the maximum sentence possible under Canadian law, but Gina comes to understand the reasons why the Inuits own justice system has worked for thousands of years. Pauloosie is caught between two rivaling justice systems, and his acceptance of guilt according to the Inuit system, will lead to imprisonment according to the Canadian system.

Trial at Fortitude Bay

1994

Iqaluit poster
7.5

Travelling to the Arctic for the first time, Carmen arrives in Iqaluit to tend to her husband, Gilles, a construction worker who has been seriously injured. Trying to get to the bottom of what happened, she strikes up a friendship with Noah, Gilles' Inuk friend, and realizes they share a similar story. Together, Carmen and Noah head out on the Frobisher Bay - she, looking for answers to her questions; he, trying to stop his son from committing what can't be undone.

Iqaluit

2016