Inuits on the streets

Premiere of “Be Smile”:  Urban Inuits Struggle in CanadaIt takes a certain kind of creative genius to look at an old situation with new eyes. Be Smile tells the remarkable story of two Inuit men who live on and off the streets of Montreal, who at times sleep on the filmmaker's floor, who paint murals on apartment walls, who wrestle with addiction and the residue of trauma in a (post)colonial and largely uncaring Canadian society.

Despite all this, they remain enough a part of a larger Inuit community in Montreal to attend regular feasts of traditional food. Even more remarkable, the Inuit men who are the subjects of the film were invited to participate in the editing of the film, making this a document not only about but by individuals who are often overlooked as we walk by their outstretched hands.