“Movies were my first love”, Nyla Innuksuk said during our Zoom interview. We’re talking about her latest movie Slash/Back and, more specifically, why she chose film as the vehicle for her story. Innuksuk is indeed the CEO and founder of Mixtape VRwho produces virtual reality content, and a writer for Marvel Comics, who co-author the . has made Native Superhero Snowguard. Despite the various mediums available to her, the Canadian Inuit artist ultimately chose film because of her childhood love of films, especially Steven Spielberg’s ET and the adventure classic for kids The Goonies. “The idea of making a movie that felt like one of the movies I grew up in, but then [was] also from this place that was familiar to me and the cast – that felt a bit special.”
Located in Pangnirtung, an Inuit hamlet on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic of Nunavut, Slash/Back follows Maika (Tasiana Shirley) and her friends Jesse, Uki, and Leena (Alexis Vincent-Wolfe, Nalajoss Ellsworth, and Chelsea Prusky, respectively) as they battle aliens that host wildlife and humans and attempt to invade their community . Armed with nothing but makeshift weapons and their own knowledge of classic horror films, the only thing standing in the way of the aliens’ hostile takeover is the group of Inuk teenage girls.
Slash/Back is the first movie ever shot in Pangnirtung
Nunavut is the home of Innuksuk. Born in Igloolik (which, like Pangnirtung, is an Inuit hamlet), she grew up in the area’s capital, Iqaluit, before moving to Toronto, where she would study film at university. In fact, it was during her studies that she first visited Pang. “I directed a documentary about this wonderful tradition of square dancing in Pangnirtung,” she said. “It was brought to Nunavut from Scotland by the whalers. They have been hunting whales in and around the Pang region for hundreds of years, so the accordion and violin are considered Inuit instruments in certain parts of the Arctic, and traditional square dancing is considered Inuit dancing.”
During her time there, Innuksuk fell in love with Pang and now even has family ties to the community. Therefore, it was almost a no-brainer to choose Pangnirtung as the location for her film. “My brother has children from the community of Pang, [and] my sister in law is from Pang so for me the idea of being able to make a movie shot in their hometown, [and them having] an alien invasion movie in their hometown, was really fun.”
As the first ever film on location in Pangnirtung, Slash/Back‘s production required full help from the community. “We first asked for permission from the city council because we knew we would impose a crew to come in and be there for the summer,” Innuksuk said. Pang’s high school directors also intervened, offering their empty classrooms for the film crew to stay in – “We shipped 60 beds and mattresses!” – as there were no hotels in the community. What’s more, when it came to designing Maika’s house, Innuksuk was adamant that she and production designer Zosia Mackenzie “had nothing that would exist in the movie that didn’t already exist in Pang.” Ultimately, it involved renting or borrowing furniture and other home accessories from those who lived in the community.
The challenge (and pride) of making Slash/Back
Innuksuk started pitching Slash/Back in 2016. Between the film belonging to a first-time feature film director, projecting to run in the Canadian Arctic and in a place not many people have heard of before, and starring local and unknown talent, Innuksuk described it process of raising money for the film in its director’s statement as “an impossible thing to do.” Fast-forward to March 2022, of course, when Slash/Back made its world premiere at SXSW, and so far, as it approaches theatrical and digital release — all the while currently sitting 100% on Rotten Tomatoes — and the Canadian director is proud of everything she and her team have accomplished.
“It was such a challenge. We all feel like we learned so much in the process of doing this,” she said. “It wasn’t real until I left” [Pangnirtung] that I thought, ‘Okay, so that’s how you make a movie, I’m ready to go!’ I can’t wait to do the next thing, to take the lessons I’ve learned from Slash/Back and apply to the next project.”
It’s mostly the sense of community and even the industry that she felt during Slash/Back‘s production in Pangnirtung that Innuksuk will cherish the most. “It’s really important to me and other indigenous filmmakers that we build capacity as we make these projects. For me, as an Inuk person, it was important that I wasn’t the only Inuk person on the crew,” she said, discussing the paid mentorship and training opportunities they have helped create in the Arctic in various departments in film production. “All those things are really an important part of how we developed the project. It’s also one of the most rewarding parts of working in a place like Pang.”
Slash/Back will be available in theaters, on VOD and digitally from October 21.