Arnait Video Productions (Women's Video Workshop of Igloolik) is a women's filmmaking collective that aims to value the voices of Inuit women in debates of interest to all Canadians. [1] Arnait is related to Isuma Productions.[ vague ]
Arnait was founded in 1991 by Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Madeline Ivalu, Susan Avingaq, Mary Kunuk Iyyiraq and Atuat Akkitirq. [2] It was originally named Arnait Ikajurtigiit (Inuktitut: Women helping each other), and focuses on documenting women's experience and community in Nunavut. [3]
Susan Avingaq describes Arnait as: "a women's video workshop [that] can help people communicate with each other. That can be useful. It can make them understand. A long time ago, just with words and language, people believed stories and legends, they saw pictures in their imagination. Our stories are useful and unforgettable". [4]
As with Isuma, Arnait's work spans interviews, short ethnographic videos on traditional activities, television series, feature documentaries and narrative feature films. [5] Their first narrative feature Before Tomorrow (Le Jour avant le lendemain) was adapted by Danish writer Jørn Riel from the novel For morgendagen. It premiered in Igloolik in 2008 in front of the community involved in its making. It received nine Canadian Genie Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Art Direction, Costumes, Sound, Original Song, and four Jutra Awards: Best Picture, Director, Costumes, Music. [6]
Uvanga premiered at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in September 2013, toured internationally to film festivals including the Berlinale, and had a theatrical release in Canada in summer 2014. [7]
In 2014, Arnait started production on Sol , a documentary prompted by the supposed suicide of 26-year-old musician Solomon Uyarasuk in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police jail cell. [8] [9] The film subsequently won the Grand Prize for Best Canadian Feature at the RIDM Montreal International Documentary Festival [10] and was included in the list of Canada's Top Ten feature films of 2014, selected by a panel of filmmakers and industry professionals organized by TIFF. [11] [12]
Igloolik is an Inuit hamlet in Foxe Basin, Qikiqtaaluk Region in Nunavut, northern Canada. Because its location on Igloolik Island is close to Melville Peninsula, it is often mistakenly thought to be on the peninsula. The name "Igloolik" means "there is a house here". It derives from iglu meaning house or building, and refers to the sod houses that were originally in the area, not to snow igloos. In Inuktitut the residents are called Iglulingmiut.
Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner is a 2001 Canadian epic film directed by Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk and produced by his company Isuma Igloolik Productions. It was the first feature film ever to be written, directed and acted entirely in the Inuktitut language.
Zacharias Kunuk is a Canadian Inuk producer and director most notable for his film Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, the first Canadian dramatic feature film produced entirely in Inuktitut. He is the president and co-founder with Paul Qulitalik, Paul Apak Angilirq, and Norman Cohn, of Igloolik Isuma Productions, Canada's first independent Inuit production company. Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (2001), the first feature film that was entirely in Inuktitut was named as the greatest Canadian film of all time by the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival poll.
The Journals of Knud Rasmussen is a 2006 Canadian-Danish film directed by Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn. The film is about the pressures on traditional Inuit shamanistic beliefs as documented by Knud Rasmussen during his travels across the Canadian Arctic in the 1920s.
Isuma is an artist collective and Canada's first Inuit-owned (75%) production company, co-founded by Zacharias Kunuk, Paul Apak Angilirq and Norman Cohn in Igloolik, Nunavut in 1990. Known internationally for its award-winning film, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, the first feature film ever to be written, directed and acted entirely in the Inuktitut language, Isuma was selected to represent Canada at the 2019 Venice Biennale where they screened the film One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk, the first presentation of art by Inuit in the Canada Pavilion.
The Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) is a television production company based in Nunavut with programming targeted at the Inuit population of Nunavut. Almost all of its programs are broadcast in Inuktitut. Some are also in English. IBC shows centre on Inuit culture. The company has five production centers in Nunavut, all staffed by Inuit. Founded in the early 1980s, the IBC was the first indigenous-language television network in North America.
Before Tomorrow is a 2008 Canadian drama film, directed by Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu. The film is an adaptation of the novel Før Morgendagen by Danish writer Jørn Riel. It was the third film released by Igloolik Isuma Productions, an Inuit film studio best known for the film Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, and is the first feature film to be made by Arnait Video Productions, a women's Inuit film collective.
Madeline Piujuq Ivalu is a Canadian Inuk filmmaker and actor from Igloolik, Nunavut. One of the cofounders of Arnait Video Productions, a women's video and filmmaking collective in Nunavut, she co-directed, co-wrote and starred in Arnait's first feature film production, Before Tomorrow . She costarred in the film with her real-life grandson, Paul-Dylan Ivalu. Her codirector of the film was Marie-Hélène Cousineau, and both women cowrote the film with Susan Avingaq.
Sol is a 2014 Canadian documentary film by Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Susan Avingaq about Solomon Uyarasuk, a musician/circus performer who died in police custody in Igloolik, Nunavut. The film questions the claims by the local Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment that Uyarasuk hanged himself in his cell, and also explores the wider issue of Nunavut's very high suicide rate.
Paul-Dylan Ivalu is a Canadian Inuk actor from Igloolik, Nunavut. He is best known for his role as Maniq in the film Before Tomorrow , for which he received a Genie Award nomination for Best Actor at the 30th Genie Awards.
Marie-Hélène Cousineau is a Canadian film director and producer. Originally from Quebec, she moved to Igloolik, Northwest Territories in 1990, where she became a co-founder of the filmmaking collective Arnait Video Productions.
Uvanga is a Canadian drama film, released in 2013. Written and directed by Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu, it was the second narrative feature film released by Arnait Video Productions.
Atuat Akkitirq (1935–2022) was a Canadian filmmaker, actress and costume designer. A partner in the filmmaking collective Arnait Video Productions, she was a shortlisted Genie Award nominee for Best Costume Design at the 22nd Genie Awards in 2002 for Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, and won the award at the 30th Genie Awards in 2010 for Before Tomorrow .
Searchers is a 2016 Inuktitut-language Canadian drama film directed by Zacharias Kunuk and Natar Ungalaaq, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Based in part on the 1956 John Ford film The Searchers, the film is set in Northern Canada in 1913. It centres on Kuanana, a man who returns from hunting to discover that much of his family has been killed and his wife and daughter have been kidnapped.
Lucy Tulugarjuk is an Inuit actress, throat singer, and director. She is executive director for the Nunavut Independent Television Network.
Nyla Innuksuk is a Canadian film director, writer, and producer, and virtual reality content creator. She is the CEO of Mixtape VR.
Jeremiah Hayes is a Canadian film director, writer and editor. Hayes is known for being the co-director, co-writer and the editor of the documentary Reel Injun, which was awarded a Gemini Award in 2010 for Best Direction in a Documentary Program. In 2011, Reel Injun won a Peabody Award for Best Electronic Media. Hayes was the co-editor of Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which was awarded a Canadian Screen Award for Best Editing in a Documentary in 2018.
Susan Avingaq is an Inuk Canadian film director, producer, screenwriter, and actress. A founding partner in Arnait Video Productions, a women's filmmaking collective based in Igloolik, Nunavut, she is most noted for her work on the film Before Tomorrow , for which she received Genie Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction/Production Design and Best Original Song ("Pamani") at the 30th Genie Awards in 2010.
Saqpinaq Carol Kunnuk is an Inuk actress and filmmaker from Canada, noted for her work with both Arnait Video Productions and Isuma Studios.
Tia and Piujuq is a Canadian family drama film, directed by Lucy Tulugarjuk and released in 2018.