Educational Media Reviews Online

Documentary filmmaker Matthias von Gunten’s third film, ThuleTuvalu provides a human perspective on climate change. Von Gunten tells viewers he has been intrigued by Thule and Tuvalu since an early age, fascinated by their remoteness on opposite ends of the globe. Thule, in this film, is Qaanaaq, Greenland, one of the northernmost inhabited places in the world. Inuit in Quaanaaq were traditionally hunters who now find the ice freezes later and thinner, then melts earlier than it has in previous years. When this ice melts, it contributes to the sea level rise being experienced by Tuvalu, a remote island nation in the Pacific Ocean.

ThuleTuvalu explores climate change’s effect on these two communities through the lens of the family. Many of Tuvalu’s islanders do not believe in climate change for religious reasons, yet they can not deny the changes happening on their island. Saltwater increasingly encroaches on their farmland and their coasts shrink while the lack of a rainy season leaves the islanders surviving a drought and in need of disaster relief. Meanwhile, the Thule Inuit experience a shortened hunting season. Thinner ice encroaches when they do go on their hunts. Their children, who would normally follow their forebearers’ traditions, are forced to adopt new roles or, sometimes, move to other places.

Relocation is not an option for many people in Thule and Tuvalu. Most people lack the financial resources to support moving to another country. As a Tuvaluan explains, the people who have left could afford to emigrate. Meanwhile, in Thule, changes in fish migration present opportunities for hunters to become fishermen, but only if the hunter has an education, which many people lack. In both locations, emigration would remove people from the community that has supported them and their families for generations. Moving to another place or changing to a different occupation would mean a dramatic change in both of these indigenous cultures.

This work is highly recommended for those wishing to learn more about climate change, especially from a cultural perspective. Environmental issues can often seem too large to grasp, yet ThuleTuvalu’s concentration on the familial experience and individual response to climate change makes a global problem comprehensible by being personal.