IN “Village at the End of the World” the stark and dramatic scenery of Niaqornat, a remote community in north-west Greenland, is so mesmerising it is easy to forget that the Inuit village may be doomed. Among the village’s foes are climate change, a dwindling local economy and the allure of the digital world. When Sarah Gavron and David Katznelson arrived in 2009 to make a documentary, Niaqornat had 59 inhabitants. By the end of filming 18 months later it had 53. “There is this sort of magic number of 50 that is talked about,” explains Ms Gavron, “under which [Danish] subsidies will be stopped and the supply ship won’t come anymore.” The village appears to be persisting on borrowed time and money.

The film concentrates on four characters: Karl, the mayor and chief hunter who is fighting to re-open the fish-processing factory (closed in 2008 due to falling profits); Ilannguaq, a chatty sewage and refuse collector who moved to Niaqornat from the south after meeting a local girl online; Ane, the oldest woman in the village and a charismatic storyteller; and Lars, a sweet but desperately bored teenager who is toying with the idea of…Continue reading

from Prospero http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/11/life-remote-greenland?fsrc=rss
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