Review of the In the Heart of the South by Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada (Kanaka ʻŌiwi)
IN THE HEART OF THE SOUTH | DIRECTED BY NYLA INNUKSUK (INUK)
Canada | 2026 | 95m | English
Don’t buy a ticket to Inuk director Nyla Innuksuk’s In the Heart of the South. Buy two. Not because you should bring someone else with you to discuss it and argue about it and laugh over it after (though you should) but because you are going to want to watch this electrifying film again. And probably again. When Innuksuk’s compellingly crafted thriller ended, I exclaimed, “What the f*ck?!” but had a big, incredulous smile on my face.
In the Heart of the South tells the story of Yura Ivalu (Anna Lambe), a breakout Inuk artist navigating the Toronto art scene, who has her perfectly curated life turned upside down when her childhood friend Sesi Ilupaalik (Zorga Qaunaq) comes back into her orbit, bringing hard looks, hard truths, and revelation. Yura knows how to package trauma neatly and palatably for her art scene audiences, and the closer she gets to a big opportunity to tell “her” story, the more Sesi becomes a dark mirror of her, until it becomes harder and harder to discern who is telling whose story and who is living whose life.
Woven into this narrative is an incisive and often uncomfortable critique of the complex contortions that Indigenous people choose to and are forced to make when navigating the world around them.
At its core In the Heart of the South is about stories and who gets to tell them. And it’s also about truth. And it’s also about community. And it’s also about insecurity, and fear, and capitalizing on trauma, and a bunch of other things. That is where the deft approach of Innuksuk and all her collaborators really comes through. The film grapples with so much but everything inheres around its central critique, and that is what makes this uncomfortable, dark film so compelling to watch.
The film explicitly tells you its own theme several times and in several different ways, as one of its central metafictional elements that the characters in the film are writing and pitching the film we are watching. And while that sounds exactly like the thing curmudgeonly critics are complaining about when they say that “message” movies are too heavy-handed, this is truly how Innuksuk and Slash/Back co-writer Ryan Cavan (or is it Brian Cabin?) show the deftness of their writing. All the times the characters or images or audio cues tell us what the theme is, they are a little bit different, they are a little bit true, they are even a little bit disingenuous. But this is by design, an expression of the sort of “participatory storytelling” that is mentioned in the near-opening monologue by a critic gushing over Yura’s work, where the audience creates the story and its critiques right alongside the film’s complex characters.
This monologue also undergirds what I found to be the most visually arresting scene of the entire film. A bare-shouldered Yura stands in front of a black backdrop, adorned only with a beautiful qaurutik, lit gently by butterfly light, with flawless skin, perfect makeup, face sculpted elegantly by shadow. It is the perfect portrait. Yura then breaks into laughter as the critic’s voiceover moves to a discussion of culpability, and the camera lingers long enough for her to move out of the perfect lighting position, as the catchlights in her eyes disappear, leaving two sinister black voids. And as the critic wraps up with the words “#truthhurts,” the photographer’s flashbulb goes off, creating the true portrait. It is one of the first visual encapsulations of what the film is about, an indication of what is hidden under the polish and the glamor. (There are actually two flashbulbs bookending the film but I will leave you the fun of trying to puzzle out the implication of the final flash.)
This rich visual language that Innuksuk created with long-time collaborator Ann Tipper does not stop there. Geometric shapes in the background throughout tell their own story, one of capture and assimilation as well as imbalance and disarray. The framing and camera work even allow us connection with some characters but keep others at a distance, with the frame even resisting one character, according to the director.
At the center of the multi-layered story, the meaning-laden visuals, and the menacing audio are the stellar and nuanced performances by Anna Lambe and Zorga Qaunaq. Anna Lambe portrays the depth and layers of the highly curated Yura, who is the model Indigenous Artist. She is outwardly warm and “just wants to make something that matters,” and is at times strident and shallow, but as the film goes on, we see that she is also full of fear. She fears being called out, being found lacking, and her fear refracts, making her believe the worst of people, assuming the worst. That revelation of the fear where Lambe shines. She plays Yura with a humanity that makes us recognize that fear in ourselves and that sometimes it actually is freeing to reinvent ourselves when our home community isn’t breathing down our necks or constraining us or judging us. But she plays Yura with a darkness as well that shows how #truthhurts also refers to when the reinvention that seemed so liberating at first turns out to be diminishment, of ourselves and our truths, until we become vessels not for our true selves but for what other people want of us.
And Zorga Qaunaq as Sesi is no less captivating. Sesi is (maybe literally) a force of nature. I have cousins like Sesi: anger just under the surface, always coiled to strike, menacing, but still charismatic, hilarious, magnetic. And Qaunaq pulls that off masterfully, sometimes just with her eyes.
Sesi shows all the things that Yura hides, speaks all the truths that Yura has buried. Sesi does not contort herself to fit into the “Indigenous”-shaped one-size-constrains-all boxes that Yura has so willingly climbed into (she is sometimes even dressed in color palettes that match the buildings of the institutions she so wants to be a part of). If Yura is emblematic of the Indigenous person who reinvents themselves when they are away from the scrutiny of the community, Sesi is the community coming back, rough around the edges, sometimes a little embarrassing, but always grounded enough to see through your bullshit.
All of these elements-–performance, visuals, writing, theme—come together to create a film that is exactly as great as the sum of all of its parts. It is stylish, memorable, at times bewildering and painful, but always powerful. It often hurts to watch, because in Nyla Innuksuk’s hands, every scene is a blade, and all of us get cut. Industry gatekeepers, allies, critics, land acknowledgment-spouting art gallery owners, even Indigenous creators and storytellers. Sometimes it is a scalpel, sometimes an axe head, and sometimes an ulu. There is an ultimate generosity to these critiques, but as Yura says in the film, “someone still bleeds at the end.” So if you are not afraid of a little blood, not afraid to be a little uncomfortable, not afraid to get hit with a little truth, go to the theater and see this movie. Twice.
Review by Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada (Kanaka ʻŌiwi)
