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Wrong Husband film image; two people snuggling on the ground

Wrong Husband

Uiksaringitara

Showcase

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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

Director
Cast

Theresia Kappianaq, Haiden Angutimarik, Leah Panimera, Mark Taqqaugaq, Karen Ivalu, Emma Quassa

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2025

Language

In Inuktitut with English subtitles

Film Contact
18+
100 min
Award Winners Drama Indigenous Cinema Legendary Filmmakers
Kingulliit Productions Inc.

Book Tickets

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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 headshot

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)

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