ARCTIC CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

13 November, 2005 by The_Boss

More4 Premiere: Wednesday November 16th 2005 at 9pm.

Illulissat, Greenland. A frontier town 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle. A community of hunters and fishermen with five regular policemen, one amateur judge and a very high incidence of violent crime. Naalu Jeremiassen, a mother of four, and Jens Reimer, a hunter, both find themselves in police detention.

She has killed her husband. He has punched and kicked his wife to within an inch of her life. Neither can remember exactly what happened... Police Investigations: Arctic Crime sets an intimate exploration of their cases in the context of a hunter-gatherer society whose notion of justice and punishment is extremely tolerant, but whose very way of life is collapsing in the face of 'progress'.

This spirit of rehabilitation and forgiveness has been written into Greenland's criminal law. In it's judgement of Naalu and Jens, the court will be obliged to consider their circumstances above their crimes. With the co-operation of the local police, the film makes it's own investigation into 'mitigating circumstances'.

It is Naalu's case and her complex personality that come to dominate the story. By coming to an understanding of what a murder in the family feels like, both for the perpetrator and for those left behind, and of why it might have happened, Police Investigations: Arctic Crime invites the audience to reach its own verdict before the court decides.