THE STORY – Takes a look at Yura Ivalu, living far from the isolated community in Nunavut where she was born. She has often felt stuck in-between two worlds, but she decides to draw inspiration from her Inuk identity while creating new artwork.
THE CAST – Anna Lambe, Zorga Qaunaq, Alexander Nunez, Rob Ramsay & Tara Nicodemo
THE TEAM – Nyla Innuksuk (Director/Writer) & Ryan Cavan (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 95 Minutes
In 2022 Nyla Innuksuk burst onto the scene with “Slash/Back,” a sci-fi tale merging elements of an alien invasion drama with traditional Inuit motifs. Her latest film is an even more dizzying proposition, clearly drawn from the director’s own navigation of the arts scene. A kind of meta-analysis of a filmmaker attempting to bring her own story to life, “In The Heart of the South” provides an often excoriating examination of what it’s like to be an Indigenous artist working within a system that so often wishes to place her work in a narrow box, all wrapped in genre elements meant to entice wider audiences.
Yura Ivalu (Anna Lambe) is a young filmmaker being paraded through Toronto’s art scene. Here we see patrons and curators vying to be the ones to showcase her art, amplifying their own status by being lauded for supporting Indigenous art. With aimless and overwrought land acknowledgements met with eye rolls from the original keepers of the land, we see Ivalu navigate this icy cultural landscape that’s in many ways far more desolate, both culturally and emotionally, than the northern lands that her ancestors called home. When presented with an opportunity to make a new film, Ivalu gives the audience of investors what they want: a tale of trauma with a bit of genre trope lift to make things work in universal ways. She provides the story of being lost in the snow with her friend Sesi, whom she describes as a Shaman, giving the tale enough menace and metaphysical wonderment to soothe the gormless patron. Soon, Sesi (Zorga Qaunaq) actually comes back into Ivalu’s life, and the yin/yang, id/ego dynamic of their friendship provides much of the film’s conflict. Played with a wonderful mix of acerbic charm and acidic menace by Qaunaq, Sesi is the Mr. Hyde to Ivalu’s Jekyll, or maybe it’s the other way around, depending on who is seen as the one making up tales and exploiting a given situation.
To Innuksuk’s credit, the film never devolves into yet another dull film about making a film, and even the generic scenes staring at a blinking cursor on a blank page take on a new relevance within the context of this particular narrative. This is a blistering critique of the fetishization by arts funders and programmers for particular narratives, while also showcasing with almost every frame the ability to burst out of narrowing expectations about what “counts” as work from the broader Indigenous community. One major weapon Innuksuk handles deftly is humor, and it’s this balance between the moments of deep emotional and even cultural cruelty that give the moments of levity that much more bite. It’s a film funded by governmental and cultural institutions reflecting back on these processes, but rather than simply a petulant biting of the hand that feeds, it’s a film that shows a way forward; one that uses narrative complexity, emotional richness, and more than a dose of traditional storytelling techniques to craft something that’s both from these ancient storytelling modes and, at the same time, startlingly contemporary.
Because of how heady these themes are, and how often the characters themselves behave in ways that are either startling or downright obnoxious, it takes exceptional performers to allow even the boorish behavior to remain compelling. Both Anna and Qaunaq collaborate on the CBC/APTN comedy television show “North of North,” and they bring both a sense of sisterhood as well as their sardonic humor to their respective roles. While some of the other characters are far more two-dimensionally drawn, it’s through the dynamic of these two characters – conjoined in ways not always healthy – that much of the film’s impact is generated.
With “In the Heart of the South,” Innuksuk further establishes herself as an artist with a unique voice, one unafraid to curse at the very institutions that have helped fuel her rise. Rather than coming across as ungrateful or petulant, her critiques land because of the complexity of their construction, decrying the hypocrisies and patronizing air of so many surrounding her in the arts community, while still carving out a space to have her own work navigate on its own terms, while championing those elements and moments that go beyond expectation or stereotype. “In the Heart of the South” is a dark, challenging, funny film, one that’s uniquely of Innuksuk’s making, but equally a work that, due to its balance of tone and topic, can speak to audiences well outside the cloistered Canadian cultural spaces.
