TORONTO — Nyla Innuksuk’s longtime love of horror — along with her own feelings of fear and doubt — serves as inspiration for her latest project exploring the uncomfortable subjects people often avoid and the complicated ways they shape friendships.
A psychological thriller co-written with Ryan Cavan, “In the Heart of the South” premièred Thursday at the Toronto International Film Festival. It is the Nunavut-born filmmaker’s second feature after her 2022 debut “Slash/Back.”
Innuksuk’s past work mainly involves short films and documentaries, so the transition to feature filmmaking in 2022, she said, was like jumping into ice-cold water and learning to swim.
The filmmaker said “Slash/Back,” which follows a group of teen girls fighting an alien invasion in Nunavut, was “ambitious” — at a time when there was a need for more resources and Inuit actors.
She felt better prepared to take on “In the Heart of the South” — but first, she had to confront feelings of fear and doubt, as she didn’t want to seem as though she was exploiting the traumas of Indigenous people, she said.
“Those conversations that we’re just afraid of having because they’re too difficult and uncomfortable,” she said in an interview. “That became the discomfort that I gravitated toward in the film.”
Innuksuk said horror and comedy build anticipation and tension in similar ways and thought it might be interesting to blend darkness with humour.
“That’s something that’s very true of at least for Inuit and for Indigenous people that I’ve met,” she said. “There’s just like this ability to laugh at the darkness of life.”
The film follows Yura Ivalu, a young multimedia artist played by Anna Lambe, who gains recognition after creating an augmented reality piece about the residential school system and struggles to find her place as an Indigenous woman in Toronto’s art scene.
Innuksuk, who grew up in Iqaluit and moved to southern Ontario, said the character’s struggle draws on her own personal identity struggles, including how other Inuit people might perceive her.
“When I go back to Nunavut … they’re like, ‘Oh, you look like an Inuk, but who was raised down in the south,’” she said.
“And I think that there’s just so much that can be caught up in this idea of identity and, for Indigenous people, what our indigeneity means and how Indigenous are we.”
In the film, chaos arrives in the form of Yura’s estranged childhood best friend, played by Zorga Qaunaq. Qaunaq, known for playing gentle and funny characters, takes on an unsettling, enigmatic role as Sesi.
Lambe and Qaunaq previously appeared together in the CBC/Netflix Arctic comedy “North of North.”
“I really, really wanted to play (Sesi),” Qaunaq said on the TIFF red carpet ahead of the film’s première.
“She has parts of me that I’ve been avoiding, like exploring my anger and confrontation and not being afraid to face conflict, to call people out.”
Speaking at the première, the 25-year-old Lambe said playing Yura helped her embrace vulnerability in ways that felt emotionally stressful.
She said she felt strongly about the film’s messages because of how it made her feel called out.
Inuit throat singing, a traditional vocal art typically performed between two people, plays a significant role in conveying the mood of certain scenes as well as characters’ emotions.
Innuksuk said she wanted to evoke a nostalgic atmosphere when, while throat singing, Sesi asked Yura to perform a “love song.”
“It puts the character of Yura in this position of discomfort because it’s all of a sudden. She’s being asked to perform her indigeneity or even it’s being put on the spot.”
The director also asked the sister duo, PIQSIQ, to produce and record their own throat singing, which is featured throughout the film.
Innuksuk said she was conscious of how the film might be received by viewers as well as fellow Inuit and Indigenous people.
“We’re aware that we’re saying something that might make people uncomfortable,” she said.
“It’s not a movie that is soft and fuzzy.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2026.
Diana Mussina, The Canadian Press
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