Inuit activist Aaju Peter is, in her own words, “twice colonized.” Having lived in both Danish-occupied Greenland and Canada, she’s directly experienced the injustices that the indigenous Inuit community faced at the hands of colonization.
Today, Peter is a lawyer globally renowned for her advocacy of Indigenous rights: She’s spoken at forums and seats of government, worked with major world leaders, and was even awarded the Order of Canada in 2012. But what’s invisible on those public stages are the very real, very personal consequences of being “twice colonized” that Peter still lives in her day-to-day life.
Lin Alluna’s latest documentary, Twice Colonized (2023), is an honest and intimate snapshot of the personal life behind Peter’s high-profile public appearances, but the film goes beyond being a simple portrait of an Inuit activist and artist. Through Peter’s assertive presence, Twice Colonized provides a vivid, complex glimpse into the real damage—both personal and societal—that has been caused as consequence of the ongoing colonization of indigenous people.
Over centuries of colonization, the Inuit people of Greenland and Canada faced economic disenfranchisement, cultural erasure, and loss of political autonomy; they still do— in the present day. Governments such as Denmark and Canada still employ colonial rhetoric, portraying themselves as benevolent colonial powers working to modernize “ancient” indigenous societies. The results have been devastating for those communities. Indigenous people continue to face erasure, bigotry, and violence in society, all as their political sovereignty and fundamental rights are still consistently denied.
Peter is, of course, sharply aware of these dynamics. As expected of a lawyer, she’s an incredibly quotable subject who eloquently pokes holes in that colonial logic throughout the film. In a conversation with a white Danish friend, for instance, she observes: “You want to see me as a pure Inuk, it’s the 300 years ago without a Starbucks. That’s so colonial…That is so 500 years ago way of thinking.” She caps it off with a characteristically forceful statement on the importance of indigenous autonomy: “No, fuck you! We want to be part of this industrialized modern world, but we want it from our perspective and the way we see things, not the way it’s imposed on us.”
Twice Colonized doesn’t just focus on Peter discussing her ideas on Inuit rights. After all, she’s done plenty of that already: a single YouTube search will pull up the numerous public speeches, talks, classes, and forums she’s participated in. Instead, the film’s strongest points are when it shows how colonization has left indelible impressions on each dimension of her daily life.
This link between the personal and political is impossible to avoid when Peter’s entire life has, without exaggeration, been shaped by colonization. As she recalls in the film, Peter was sent to live with white families in Denmark at age 11 to study. The consequence was isolation in an unfriendly society and a devastating loss of her cultural heritage; she lost her native language and was relentlessly bullied after moving back at age 18. The deep scars this left is more than evident when Peter revisits her hometown in Greenland midway through the film—an emotionally difficult trip that forces her to confront the traumas of her past.
It was only after she moved to Iqaluit, Nunavut that she was seen as truly Inuit and not only an, as she puts it, “broken Greenlander,” but the impacts of colonization do not only exist in the past. By following her during her daily life in a grounded, undramatized way, Twice Colonized makes the current impact of the discrimination and cultural erasure the Inuit have faced tangible.
The impact of colonization is palpable in the language Peter chooses to speak between Inuktitut, English, and (when absolutely necessary) Danish. It’s present as the camera follows her as she fishes and sews with sealskin—central parts of Inuit culture which have frequently been persecuted. It’s evident in the lingering shots of the tattoos on her chin and hands—previously banned, only recently reclaimed. It’s clear in the devastating impact of her son’s recent suicide—directly connected to the high rate of mental health issues that are a consequence of centuries of oppression. All of these facets are already present in Peter’s life, and the documentary succeeds by simply showing them and allowing her to speak for herself.
It helps that Peter herself is a remarkable subject. She’s open and vulnerable about her private struggles—her grief over her son’s recent suicide, her difficult childhood, and her abusive boyfriend. She’s self-reflective, honest, charismatic, warm, and funny—even in difficult situations. (When her boyfriend calls, she jokes, with a wry smile, “That’s the asshole.”) She is, above all, sharply aware of the structural violence indigenous communities face and quick to critique how those forces have molded her own life.
This intersection between personal emotions and political advocacy lies at the heart of the documentary. As Peter writes in her memoir (appropriately also titled Twice Colonized): “Is it possible to change the world and mend your own wounds at the same time?” The impact of those wounds is palpable. At many points in the film, the justified anger at the daily injustices she faces galvanizes her to take action. At one point, Peter’s abusive white boyfriend, Marcus, cuts her hair to humiliate her—which, she says, “like a rocket, propelled me in the opposite direction,” motivating her to double down on her advocating efforts.
The film also zooms in on her healing and joy. She dances and jams to music while in a hotel room, driving, and cleaning pans. She plays with her grandkid, letting the child try on her customized lawyer’s robes that she lined with fur herself. She has heartfelt visits with friends, community members, and other activists. She comes to an understanding of how advocacy is also a means of self-expression, fulfillment, and healing—a source of internal power, to be utilized to fight for the people she cares for.
Finding this strength is crucial to Peter’s mission in producing—or, as the opening credits say, “liv[ing]”— Twice Colonized. After all, Inuit history has, for far too long, been defined by the colonizers who control it. As Peter declares in the film: “Our history has been written by outsiders and visitors. I want to write our own history.” Twice Colonized is an effective rewriting of that history from her own personal lens, with a narrative that’s deeply touching, engaging, and moving to watch.
Twice Colonized had its World Premiere in the World Cinema Documentary Competition section of the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.
Director: Lin Alluna
Rated: NR
Runtime: 92m
Twice Colonized is an effective rewriting of that history from her own personal lens, with a narrative that’s deeply touching, engaging, and moving to watch.
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GVN Rating 8.5
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