Capsule review · VIFF 2026
Comedy/Drama/Horror/Thriller • NR • 95 Minutes • 2026
Nyla Innuksuk’s In the Heart of the South blends satire and genre filmmaking into an uneven but technically polished film with a camera that loves to move. It follows Yura Ivalu (Anna Lambe), an ambitious artist turned screenwriter, who is given a chance to write her own Indigenous story. Along comes Sesi Ilupaalik (Zorga Qaunaq), a childhood friend from her home village, throwing her life and work into turmoil and challenging her identity and responsibility to her story. In the Heart of the South wants to simultaneously be a genre film and a deep psychological exploration into what it means to tell stories that represent a community and look at the responsibility that comes with it. It’s a subject matter we’ve seen before in films about writers but seldom seen in exploring Indigenous storytelling. Every decision Yura makes is held against a standard of stories that came before; narratives told by non-Indigenous peoples and the conflicts around the world today — is the screenplay she’s writing as important as war around the world? To Yura, yes. I enjoyed many of the ideas and themes (if overstocked) behind this metatextual film, but the lack of rising tension and conflict left much of the film feeling sterile, leaving me waiting for all hell to break loose by the end, if only to experience a jolt.
about the author
Merrick Gajdics is founder, publisher and editor of The Canadian Film Reviewer.