Arnait Video Productions

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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 ]

Contents

History

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]

Productions

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]

Short works

Features

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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.

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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.

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References

  1. "Arnait History | IsumaTV". isuma.tv. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
  2. "Our Team - Arnait Video Productions". arnaitvideo.ca. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
  3. Stern, Pamela R. (2013). Historical dictionary of the Inuit (Second ed.). Lanham: The Scarecrow Press. p. 33. ISBN   9780810879126.
  4. Pamela Wilson; Michelle Stewart (6 August 2008). Global Indigenous Media: Cultures, Poetics, and Politics. Duke University Press. p. 75. ISBN   0-8223-8869-3.
  5. "Projects - Arnait Video Productions". arnaitvideo.ca. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
  6. "Before Tomorrow | IsumaTV". isuma.tv. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
  7. Telefilm Canada. "Marie-Hélène Cousineau Arnait Video Productions Producers Telefilm Canada". canada-berlin2014.ca. Archived from the original on 2014-08-10. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
  8. "Eye on the Arctic  » Nunavut filmmakers turn the lens on suicide". rcinet.ca. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
  9. "Nunavut coroner to hold inquest into Igloolik man's jail cell death". nunatsiaqonline.ca. Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2014-07-25.
  10. "Award Winners of the 17th Edition". RIDM — Montreal International Documentary Festival. 2014-11-23. Archived from the original on 2015-01-15.
  11. "TIFF Tips Its Toque to the Best in Canadian Filmmaking: Cronenberg, Dolan, and Gunnarson Among Directors Recognized" (PDF) (Press release). TIFF. 1 December 2014.
  12. Linda Barnard (1 December 2014). "TIFF's Top Ten Film Festival: Spotlight on Canadian film". Toronto Star. Retrieved 21 December 2014.