Running Time: 57 mins
Year: 1990

synopsis

Unknown to most Canadians today, Joseph Idlout was once the world’s most famous Inuit. The star of films and books, Idlout was one of the Inuit hunters pictured on the back of Canada’s $2 bill. Like Nanook of the North, Idlout became a symbol of his people—the heroic myth that fascinated the White imagination.

Idlout’s son, Peter Paniloo, takes us on a poignant journey through his father’s life. Idlout, the great hunter, eventually becomes a fox-fur trapper and guide. Trying to improve his family’s fortunes, he gets caught up in the White world. The outcome being that Joseph Idlout does not know who he is or where he belongs. He is “Between Two Worlds.”

Today the legacy of Inuit dependency is frightening. The suicide rate among young Inuit is five times the national average. The unemployment rate in many communities is a startling 50%. Joseph Idlout could never have imagined the changes that would overwhelm his North, but he was one of the first casualties.

Credits

A film by Barry Greenwald
Producers: Peter Raymont, Barbara Sears

Produced by Investigative Productions, Completion Guarantor, Don Haig, Film Arts,
with the participation of Telefilm Canada, The Ontario Film Development Corporation, the Global Television Network, Channel Four Television, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Sveriges Television,
the National Film Board of Canada, Rogers Telefund