Nanook of the North Director: Robert Flaherty Book cinema tickets In 1920, explorer and filmmaker Robert Flaherty called upon his ten years of experience in the sub-zero Hudson Bay region of Canada to make a ‘photoplay’ about life there. As his subject, Flaherty cast the Eskimo hunter Nanook and a photogenic ‘family’, whose personalities were so real and vivid that no Hollywood screenwriter could possibly have dreamed them up. Using unobtrusive filming techniques, Flaherty captured one stunning sequence after another as he tracked Nanook’s cold and primitive existence. U.S.A., 1921. Black and white. 71 mins. Director: Robert Flaherty