TARTUPALUK

 

TARTUPALUK (PROTOTYPE) is a virtual reality experience during which users are invited to visit the imaginary Republic of Tartupaluk (“looking like a kidney”). Starring director Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory as the larger-than-life, newly inaugurated President of the Republic, the work blends 360 live-action video, motion-capture animation, and VFX to bring to life a poetic, sometimes humorous Inuit utopia set in this barren, uninhabited 1.3 sq km island within the territorial waters of both Canada and Greenland. Having been the subject of real-life, decades-old economic and political disputes between Ottawa and Copenhagen, Tartupaluk is thus completely re-imagined in Laakkuluk’s visionary extravaganza.
The work, set in the glorious spring weather of the Arctic, takes users on a surreal tour of the island accompanied by the President’s arch Kalaallisut/English/Inuktitut voice-over narration, cutting between her inaugural speech recreated from various locations (on the land, inside Tartupalummiut houses, etc.), and overlapped with 3D animations illustrating how a deserted and faraway, yet politically coveted piece of land can blossom into a cross-border, humanistic, and convening “nation of lovers.”

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Director: Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory

Canada, Denmark, Greenland / 2023 

8 min. / VR / Original version

Original language: English, Inukitut, Kalaallisut

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Production: Emile Hertling Péronard, Charles Stephane Roy
Production companies: Anorak Film (Nuuk, Greenland), LMDP Co. (Montreal, Canada)
Screenplay: Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory
Cinematography: Thomas LeBlanc 
Editing: Mikael Lindskov Jakobsen 
Music: Joshua Qaumariaq
Sound design: Anders Bjoern Roerbaek Pedersen 
Sound: Tobias Haynes
Costumes: Papatsi Kotierk 
Make-up: Cynthia Pitseolak 
Casting: Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory
Assistant director: Roselynn Akulukjuk
Production manager: Halley Roback
Executive producer: Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory
With Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (President), Jaqqa Petersen (Executive Assistant)

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