#TIFF23 Review: Tautuktavuk (What We See) (Discovery)

By John Corrado

★★½ (out of 4)

The 2023 Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 7th to 17th, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.

Tautuktavuk (What We See) is a unique hybrid film from co-directors Carol Kunnuk and Lucy Tulugarjuk born out of the COVID-19 pandemic, that unfolds with the realism and immediacy of a documentary merged with narrative drama. The filmmakers star in the film as versions of themselves, playing two Inuit sisters who start to reconnect virtually over the course of the initial lockdown.

The older sister, Saqpinak (Kunnuk), still lives in Nunavut, while younger sister Uyarak (Tulugarjuk) is in Montreal. They are both playing characters who are rooted in their own experiences, and much of the film unfolds over Zoom chats, as Uyarak starts to open up about the abuse that she has experienced since childhood. This is spurred by a recurring nightmare that Uyarak is having of running barefoot through the snow (a scene that opens the film, calling to mind Canadian classic Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, which Tulugarjuk appeared in).

This is very much a product of the pandemic, and there are some aesthetic limitations to the filmmaking due to the heavy reliance on Zoom calls. But Tautuktavuk (What We See) uses the obvious constraints of the lockdown to tell a story that gets at something deeper about how the isolation brought on by the pandemic not only led to an increase in domestic violence, but also forced many survivors to reconcile with what they had been through. It’s an interesting hybrid of fact and fiction, carried by naturalistic performances.