Through the eyes of Nanook of the North director Robert Flaherty’s unacknowledged granddaughter Martha Flaherty, SHADOW OF NANOOK explores the darker side of the film’s legacy on the descendants the filmmaker left behind on his road to fame. The documentary revisits the frozen High Arctic where Martha’s family was forced into a traumatic exile by the Canadian government, serving as ‘human flags’ to demonstrate Canada’s sovereignty during the Cold War. Now 72, Martha seeks justice for her Inuit family’s exile and passes on the torch of Indigenous activism to her daughter, Alyssa and son Christian.
