Cinema
Qivitoq
Erik Balling · 1956
Synopsis
Eva, a young schoolteacher, comes from Denmark to Greenland to surprise her fiancé, a doctor there, and discovers that he has not waited for her and is going to marry his nurse. While waiting for the next boat, she makes her way to a small fishing village, where she clashes with Jens, the taciturn Dane who runs the trading post. Jens tries to persuade a Greenlander, Pavia, to become a fisherman for the company, but Pavia fears the disapproval of the village and the qivitoq spirit, that of humiliated men who have gone to live alone in the mountains.
Context
Written by Leck Fischer, the film is one of the first two Danish feature films shot in colour, along with a comedy by the same director, the same year, and it was shot entirely in Greenland, in its villages and snowy expanses. It combines with the sentimental drama a kind of documentary on the relations between Danes and Greenlanders and on the superstitions that govern both.
Who it is for
Nearly two hours, in Danish and Greenlandic. Know before watching that a qivitoq is, in the Greenlandic tradition, one who leaves other people to live alone in the mountains.
Prizes and reception
First Danish film nominated for the Oscar for foreign-language film; prize for romantic documentary, ex aequo, at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival.
Sources for this page 5
The pages consulted to check this page.