FILMS WE LIKE in association with EYESTEEL FILM presents
TWICE COLONIZED
By LIN ALLUNA
CANADIAN PREMIERE /
OPENING NIGHT FILM, HOT DOCS
Thursday, April 27, 2023
Films We Like and Eyesteel Film have teamed up to release Twice Colonized by Danish filmmaker Lin Alluna, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival 2023 and was selected as opening night film at CPH:DOX, and the Hot Docs Film Festival.
Twice Colonized focuses on renowned Inuit lawyer and activist Aaju Peter, who has led a lifelong fight for the rights of her own and other indigenous peoples’ struggle for recognition in a world where colonialism is not a thing of the past. But at the same time, she struggles with her own demons and traumas in a film that tells her story.
The dynamic, charismatic subject of Lin Alluna’s documentary portrait, Peter opened her life to the camera over a seven-year-period, allowing us to share the lows – the death of her son, her struggles to extricate herself from an abusive relationship – and her journey going forward, which takes her to Canada, Greenland, Sweden, Denmark and the UN headquarters, confronting the insidious influence of colonization on Indigenous people.
Twice Colonized is the first co-production between Inuit across colonial borders. The film was commissioned by CBC Docs, and will have its broadcast premiere on CBC's documentary series, The Passionate Eye, in the 2023-24 broadcast season.
Handled with respect and sensitivity.
Screen Daily
2023 - 91 MINUTES - COLOR - 1.85:1
CANADA, DENMARK, GREENLAND IN ENGLISH, DANISH, INUKTITUT
Opens in Theaters Across Canada May 12
Press Kit + Trailer TBA
Press Contact:
Mercy Lam mercy@filmswelike.com
Virginia Kelly virginia@vkpr.ca
About Lin Alluna
Lin Alluna expresses herself through international, character-driven documentaries. She graduated in 2017 as a documentary director from the National Film School of Denmark and was selected as one of the new Nordic Talents the same year. Her artistic focus revolves around intimacy and dissolving the limits of reality. In 2020, she was selected for the CIRCLE Women Doc Accelerator program.
Director’s Statement
“As a white Dane, I’m historically embedded in the colonization under which Aaju Peter has suffered, but I also have the possibility to confront my country with its past. Producer Emile Hertling Péronard, was a big part of finding a way that was ethically and creatively sustainable both behind and in front of the camera. It was because of him that we came to produce with Alethea Arnaquq-Baril(Angry Inuk) and Stacey Aglook MacDonald (Qanurl), ensuring an Inuit led production”.
Aaju Peter’s Statement
I think the reason why I have protected Inuit rights to their language and culture is because those were taken from me. I was just a child and I did not have a choice when I was taken from Greenland to Denmark for school. As an adult, I have a choice and I chose to protect Inuit language and cultural rights.
In 1979 a year after I had moved back to Greenland there was a big gathering of Inuit from Greenland, Canada, and Alaska. I did not know that other Inuit existed other than Greenlanders. I was very much taken by this. I met one of the Canadian Inuit and moved with when he moved back home to Nunavut in Canada in 1980 for a visit. I have lived in Iqaluit since.
About Eyesteel Film
Founded by Dan Cross, Mila Aung-Thwin and joined by producer Bob Moore, Eyesteel Film is a creative film collective based in Montreal, EyeSteelFilm has produced many award-winning films, most recently Twice Colonized by Lin Alluna.
About Films We Like
Founded by award-winning documentary filmmaker Ron Mann (Grass, Comic Book Confidential, Carmine Street Guitars) Films We Like is a boutique distributor of documentary, independent, and international films in Canada. Recent releases include Geographies of Solitude, Saint Omer, EO and Academy Award winning feature Drive My Car.