Ever Deadly is a portrait of the acclaimed Inuk throat singer and author Tanya Tagaq. Co-directed by Tagaq and Canadian documentary filmmaker Chelsea McMullan (who directed the award-winning My Prairie Home in 2013), this beautifully crafted documentary combines exceptional performance recordings with interviews, verité camerawork, archival material, and hand-drawn animation. Intimate cinematography and crisp sound captures Tagaq’s innovative and experimental throat singing from the film’s incredible opening scene onwards. Loving moments with Tagaq and her children are filmed on location in Nunavut, and words from her novel Split Tooth provide poetry and rhythm to the film. Painful memories are recounted of Tagaq’s mother and her family being forced to relocate due to racist colonial policies, which allows us to appreciate Tagaq’s exploration of her Inuk artistic practice as an act of healing and resistance.
Q&A Oct 1
Media Partner
Tanya Tagaq, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Mary Gillis, Inuuja Gillis, Lucas Kalluk
Canada
2022
In English and Inuktitut with English subtitles
Nudity
Open to youth!
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Giant
This was the Yellowstone of its time: a big, sweeping modern Western built around an imposing ranch and family dynamics -- except Giant is much more subversive. James Dean strikes it rich as Jett Rink, much to the disgust of his former boss, Rock Hudson.
Familiar Touch
A loving portrait of an octogenarian transitioning into an assisted living facility, this award-winning first feature by choreographer Sarah Friedland has a simplicity and warmth that's exceptionally poignant.
Super Happy Forever
This beguiling film depicts a man’s return to the Japanese seaside town where he met his now-deceased wife five years earlier. He tries to relive the past, and in the film's final section -- a flashback to 2018 -- the audience is afforded that privilege.
A Streetcar Named Desire
"I don't want realism. I want magic!" declares Blanche du Bois, the tragic heroine who meets her nemesis in her sister's husband, Stanley Kowalski, in Tennessee Williams' great play. Brando's performance as Stanley is a turning point in American acting.
Georgia O'Keeffe: the Brightness of Light
Drawing on her copious correspondence and the world's leading scholars, this is a definitive documentary on the life and work of "the mother of American Modernism."
Credits
Executive Producer
Anita Lee
Producer
Lea Marin, Anita Lee
Screenwriter
Tanya Tagaq, Chelsea McMullan
Cinematography
Alejandro Coronado
ANIM
Glenn Gear, Fred Casia, Parissa Mohit
Editor
Avrïl Jacobson
Original Music
Jesse Zubot
Directors
Photo by Luis Mora
Chelsea McMullan
Chelsea McMullan (they/their) is one of Canada’s leading filmmakers. They make documentary, experimental narrative, and hybrid films that explore the work of leading international artists. McMullan’s features, including My Prairie Home (2013), a musical documentary about the pioneering transgender musician Rae Spoon, have premiered at Sundance, Toronto, True/False, and other leading international festivals. They have directed episodes of the documentary series This is Pop (Netflix/Crave) and In the Making (CBC). McMullan has also made numerous short films about and in collaboration with international artists such as Eileen Myles, Zhang Huan, Isabelle Marant, and Ken Lum.
Filmography: My Prairie Home (2013); Michael Shannon Michael Shannon John (2015)
Photo by Thomas Van Der Zaag
Tanya Tagaq
From Nunavut, Tanya Tagaq is an improvisational singer, avant-garde composer, and author. She is a member of the Order of Canada and a Polaris Music Prize and Juno Award winner. Tagaq’s art challenges static ideas of genre and culture, and contends with themes of Indigenous rights, colonialism, environmentalism, racism, and violence against women and girls, in particular MMIWG (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls). Tagaq has recorded with Saul Williams, Björk, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and more. She has composed pieces for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and created a sound installation for the National Maritime Museum in London.