Dr. Zacharias Kunuk OC, ONu

Co-founder and President

Born in 1957 in a sod house on Baffin Island, Zacharias Kunuk was a carver in 1981 when he sold three sculptures in Montreal to buy a home-video camera and 27” TV to bring back to Igloolik, a settlement of 500 Inuit who had voted twice to refuse access to outside television. After working six years for Inuit Broadcasting Corporation as producer and station manager, Kunuk co-founded Igloolik Isuma Productions Inc. in 1990 with Paul Apak Angilirq, Pauloosie Qulitalik and Norman Cohn. In 2001, Kunuk’s first feature, Atanarjuat The Fast Runner, won the Camera d’or at the Cannes Film Festival and was shown around the world. In addition to the feature Atanarjuat The Fast Runner (2001 Cannes Camera d’Or), Kunuk has directed more than 30 documentaries and feature films including The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change, and Maliglutit (Searchers). His last feature, One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (2019), premiered as the main artpiece of the Canadian Pavilion at the 58th Biennale di Venezia, where Kunuk and the Isuma Collective were Canada’s representative artists. He has honorary doctorates from Trent University and Wilfred Laurier University; is the winner of three Genie Awards including Best Director and Best Picture, a National Arts Award, and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award, and the 2017 Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award from the Toronto Film Critics Association. Zacharias Kunuk was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2015 and an Officer of the Order of Nunavut in 2019. His latest film is a stop-motion short called Angakusajaujuq (The Shaman's Apprentice).