In a remote Arctic village circa 2000 BCE, two young lovers, Kaujak (Theresia Kappianaq) and Sapa (Haiden Angutimarik), are promised to each other from birth. When Kaujak’s father suddenly dies, however, her mother is forced to remarry a man from another camp, leaving her no choice but to depart and divide the couple, upsetting the delicate balance of their union. As Kaujak fends off aggressive suitors in her new home and Sapa works to find his way back to her, a mysterious troll creature menaces the village’s waterfront, threatening to pull its inhabitants into dark waters.
Featuring a cast of mostly non-professional actors, acclaimed Inuk filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk’s latest feature is both a wrenching narrative of young love struggling against generational tradition and a detailed recreation of cultural custom and ritual. Filled with magisterial landscape vistas and spellbinding touches of the supernatural, Wrong Husband reimagines centuries-old traditions into a singular work of contemporary cinema.
Best Canadian Feature Film, Toronto 2025
Oct 8 & 10: Q&A
Community Partner
Theresia Kappianaq, Haiden Angutimarik, Leah Panimera, Mark Taqqaugaq, Karen Ivalu, Emma Quassa
Canada
2025
In Inuktitut with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Zacharias Kunuk, Susan Avingaq
Producer
Zacharias Kunuk, Jonathan Frantz, Sam Cohn-Cousineau, Carol Kunnuk
Screenwriter
Zacharias Kunuk, Sam Cohn-Cousineau
Cinematography
Jonathan Frantz
Editor
Zacharias Kunuk, Jonathan Frantz, Raphaël Sandler
Production Design
Susan Avingaq, Mélanie Mcnicoll
Original Music
Tiffany Ayalik, Inuksuk Mackay (PIQSIQ)
Zacharias Kunuk
Zacharias Kunuk has directed more than 30 documentaries and feature films including Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001 Cannes Camera d’Or), which was named the “best Canadian film of all-time” in a 2015 TIFF critics’ poll. In 2003, he founded the distribution company Isuma Distribution International, to allow Inuit audiences better access to Inuktitut film and video, and in 2008, he introduced the website www.isuma.tv. In 2015, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada, and in 2019, an Officer of the Order of Nunavut.
Filmography: Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001); The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006); Searchers (2016); Kivitoo: What They Thought of Us (2018); One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk (2019)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The President's Cake
Nine year old Lamia and her friend Saeed venture into the city to scrounge ingredients for a cake to celebrate Sadaam Hussein's birthday — a quest fraught with real peril in precarious times. Winner, Camera d'Or, Cannes.
Sinners
2025's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.
Montreal, ma belle
In this Valentine to discovering love later in life, the ever-elegant Joan Chen plays Feng Xia, a 53-year-old Chinese immigrant and mother in Montreal whose world is turned upside down when she meets and falls in love with a young Quebecoise.
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
Antonia's Line
This month's Pantheon selection spotlights the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the Dutch feminist filmmaker Marleen Gorris, and her charming, vibrant tale of an emancipated farmer who refuses to conform.
Oscars® Party 2026
Experience the Academy Awards in style at the VIFF Centre! Watch the ceremony live on the big screen with a red carpet, a fully licensed bar and live hosts.