Winner of 4 Genies (the Canadian Oscar equivalent) including Best Actor, Director and Screenplay and 3 Jutras (the Quebecois Oscar equivalent) including Best Film, The Necessities of Life is a finely observed and beautifully filmed story of cross-cultural connection based on the tuberculosis epidemic that broke out in the Inuit population of far northern Canada in the 1940s and '50s. Natar Ungalaaq of The Fast Runner stars as a stricken man, diagnosed with TB when a medical boat docks during the brief summer in which his Baffin Island home is accessible to the outside world. Three months' passage later, he lands in Quebec City, where everything seems alien—even the myriad trees that obstruct clear views unlike the stark, wide-open vistas of home. While no one here speaks Inuktitut, Tivii does grasp that his treatment is expected to last as long as two years. Despairing, he's nonetheless somewhat buoyed by the warm concern of fellow patient Joseph and nurse Carole. His outlook improves when she orchestrates the hospital transfer of Kaki, a similarly afflicted orphan who's been away from his native culture for many months. That's time enough to have learned French, so he can act as Tivii's translator, while the latter takes a fatherly interest in stoking the child's lapsed knowledge of traditional Inuk customs and myths.

Sponsored by Pat Clark

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