WALLS – Akinni Inuk

Jury motivation:

WALLS – Akinni Inuk is a documentary that has been eight years in the making. The directors Sofie Rørdam and Nina Paninnguaq Skydsbjerg have carefully navigated the shifts in focus throughout the long production period. The film effectively illustrates the unpredictability inherent in long-term documentary projects. Its three layers – the autobiographical footage filmed by inmates, a portrait of Ruth serving a prison sentence, and the evolving friendship between Ruth and Nina – come together to form a nuanced and multi-faceted narrative. The documentary addresses weighty themes such as murder, imprisonment, violence, and neglect. Yet, the directing and editing have avoided dramatisation and sensationalism. Instead, the film is marked by a subtle warmth, moments of optimism, and even touches of humour. This unsentimental and direct approach, occasionally accompanied by a quiet glint in the eye, lends the documentary a distinctive narrative tone with a clearly Greenlandic character. Gustav Lynge Petrussen underscores magnificently this tone through his original music. Evocative sceneries woven into the quiet scenes featuring intimate conversations between Ruth and Nina provide authenticity in their gradual recognition of their mutual destiny. Through the lives of the two women, whose paths could easily have been reversed, the film explores the fragile and unpredictable nature of freedom and independence across generations, both for individuals and societies. This theme is especially poignant when framed in the context of external influences such as colonialism.