| The Banff Centre for The Arts recently bestowed yet another honour on Zacharias Kunuk, director of Atanarjuat (The Fast Runner), when he was named recipient of the Centre’s National Arts Award for 2001.
Kunuk’s film has already won numerous awards the world over, most notably the Camera D’Or for best first feature at the Cannes film festival, as well as Genies for best picture, achievement in direction and best screenplay. The National Arts Award puts him in the company of some of the country’s finest artists, as previous recipients include Timothy Findley, Denys Arcand, Douglas Cardinal and Margaret Laurence. Kunuk will also receive $10,000 cash and a residency at The Banff Centre.
Still, despite all the accolades he and his film have received, Kunuk says his greatest honour was to make a film that pleased the Inuit audience it was created for.
"Doing it ‘right’ was the job that we were trying to do best," says Kunuk, explaining that because the story of Atanarjuat is one that has been passed down through generations, every little mistake would be noticed.
"We were going to look bad," he says with a chuckle. "Showing it for the first time after it was edited, in our community... was our scariest moment."
Kunuk was genuinely worried that his peers wouldn’t accept the story once it had been rendered cinematically. But, he says, when the credits started to roll, his fears were allayed.
"They started shaking our hands and thanking us and that was it – we did our job and to share it with the outside world is a bonus." |
