Searchers is a 2016 Inuktitut-language Canadian drama film directed by Zacharias Kunuk and Natar Ungalaaq, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Based in part on the 1956 John Ford film The Searchers, the film is set in Northern Canada in 1913. It centres on Kuanana (Benjamin Kunuk), a man who returns from hunting to discover that much of his family has been killed and his wife and daughter have been kidnapped.

Plot

In an Inuit community, elders take note that four men, leader Kupak and followers Aulla, Tulimaaq and Timauti, are guilty of murder, lechery and not sharing food. Consequently, they are exiled from the band and left to wander the Arctic landscape. In a nearby community, Kuanana and his wife Ailla are raising children and living in their extended family. Kuanana sets out to hunt for caribou, with the elder instructing him to take the young Siku as his hunting partner, though Kuanana's son Angutii also wishes to go. While they are absent, Kupak and Aulla, longing for women, ambush Kuanana's igloo, abducting Ailla and her daughter. Kuanana and Siku return to the igloo, and Kuanana is shocked to see it in ruins, and Angutii murdered. The elder, mortally wounded, tells Kuanana that men kidnapped Ailla and her daughter, and gives him a totem to summon a spirit guide, Kallulik, the loon. The elder then dies.