| Summary: | This research examines sites of visual sovereignty in the seal hunt scene from Nanook of the North (1922) by putting it in conversation with Angry Inuk (2016), a more recent Inuit documentary on seal hunting. I aim to reveal expressions of Indigenous sovereignty that scholars have previously overlooked in the literature and suggest that Nanook is not solely a work of colonial ideas as many have argued. To do this, I rely on a close reading and rhetorical analysis of Nanook of the North and Angry Inuk using “visual sovereignty†as my reading practice. Significantly, I have found that Inuit knowledge is centered in the film yet withheld from the viewer, highlighting Inuit authority on and over their cultural practices. The centering of Inuit knowledge and culture throughout the seal hunt scene is suggestive of Nanook’s potential.
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