Of all the animation reels made in Kinngait in the 1970s, Jamesie Fournier says he remembers the sand reels best.

“It has an ethereal, dreamlike quality to it,” he said. “Just seeing animation in sand and seeing one image blur into another, but also seeing a culture reflected into that as well, something that’s uniquely Inuit… I thought, well, that is quite something.” 

Many of these stop motion animation sand reels were made by Timmun Alariaq in the 1972 Sikusilarmiut animation workshop in Kinngait, Nunavut. The workshop was put on by the National Film Board of Canada, with support from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs and the government of the Northwest Territories. 

Some of those sand reels aired in the 18-minute film “Animation from Cape Dorset” in 1973, which went on to win an award at Animafest Zagreb and gain international attention. 

But many reels were put in storage and never screened to a wider audience. 

That was until last summer, when the National Film Board of Canada uncovered and digitized these forgotten reels, labelled “Arctic Workshop Reel 1″, “Arctic Workshop Reel 2” and “Arctic Workshop Reel 3.”

These newly uncovered reels run for more than 50 minutes and are made by 12 different filmmakers — nearly triple the number of reels first screened to the public in “Animation from Cape Dorset.”  

“Think of it as a director’s cut,” Fournier said. “All of [the reels] had never seen the light of day or had never gotten into any sort of acclaim or accreditation for the artists. So, being able to have this body of work, and being able to make it widely available to folks is really an exciting, exciting time.”

Fournier is the coordinator for the Aulajut Nunavut International Film Festival, where the reels screened to a public audience for the first time in Iqaluit this week.

The reels will be screening in Kinngait next week and Igloolik the week after to share them with more communities. They are also available to watch on the National Film Board of Canada’s website. 

Uncovered reels are ‘modern and experimental’

Peter Raymont directed the 1975 film “Sikusilarmiut” about the workshop. He says he was “honoured” to be invited to go to Kinngait and make the film. 

“Amazing footage, right?” he said, smiling. “Made by these kids just sort of experimenting with various animation techniques. And I was told to splice it all together and to send it to film festivals.”

Raymont says it’s “wonderful” that these uncovered animation reels are now available to watch.

“That’s remarkable, because we didn’t include all the films, obviously, that the animators of [Kinngait] were doing in 1973 when they won that award,” he said. “They kept making films … and now they’re all available to see.”

Like Raymont, Fournier says the reels are experimental, unconventional and may challenge any misconceptions people may have when they think of Inuit art.

“Here you see a body of work that is very modern and experimental, especially for the 1970s era,” he said. “So we have this feeling of a new wave of artistic expression coming out that defies the traditional beliefs that we [have about] Inuit art.” 

Fournier says these reels still hold up today. He said he’s equally amazed by the other vibrant work made by artists from these workshops, like the reel “Magic Man”, which depicts a person flying. 

“That’s the exact same thing that people are producing now, just with their cell phones as a reel clip,” he said, smiling. “But that’s what these guys were doing in 1972 on the land in Kinngait.”