- Welcome to POV.
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of PBS Wisconsin's Director's Cut.
In tonight's film, we meet a gritty, determined Inuit lawyer
named Aaju Peter.
Peter has been forced to assimilate not once,
but twice into different cultures
during her tumultuous but inspiring life.
Tonight's film, Twice Colonized, tells the story
of Aaju's struggles to adapt to new surroundings
and fight for Indigenous rights,
all while trying to reconnect with who she was
before being reprogrammed by two different cultures.
Aaju Peter is a leading lady filmmakers dream of.
Twice Colonized tells her story as she embarks on a journey
to undo the effects from a lifetime of being whitewashed
and forced to assimilate to other cultures.
The journey she is on is one of finding her own identity
while bringing those responsible for colonizing Indigenous people
to justice.
The colonizers Peter has in her sights
include the countries of Denmark and Canada.
Instead of just accepting her fate,
Peter is determined to help other marginalized
and oppressed communities.
Tonight, we watch this tireless activist fight
to protect her ancestral lands by attempting to launch a forum
to establish an Indigenous presence at the European Union.
Director Lin Alluna calls Aaju Peter a modern-day hero
who generously bares her soul for us to learn from.
Alluna shows some of this soul baring
when Peter struggles to heal and move forward
after the unexpected passing of her youngest child.
It's easy to see why Alluna was so drawn to her leading lady.
Peter is just one of those people
that life cannot keep down no matter what it throws at her.
For example, after a failed marriage to a man from Canada,
she ended up raising five kids by herself,
all while becoming a lawyer in 2007.
But instead of dwelling on the hardships,
she uses her experiences to fight for causes
she believes in.
This is Alluna's documentary directorial feature film debut.
She said her goal in making the film was to enact change,
in respect of cultural and human diversity,
by bringing something new and different to the cinema.
Alluna says that, being Danish, she was a colonizer by default.
Since meeting Peter,
she's reflected on her life in Denmark,
saying she was raised to believe Greenland was uninhabitable
and that Danish explorers and missionaries claimed
to have discovered it and considered themselves saviors.
Lin Alluna believed all of that, until she met Aaju Peter.
Alluna is hoping Twice Colonized empowers the audience
to feel that no matter who they are, where they come from,
or what they've been through,
they can still make a difference.
Twice Colonized starts now on PBS Wisconsin,
your home for independent film.