Isuma Productions
An independent production company, that produces film, documentaries, and TV-series, to preserve Inuit culture
Initiator(s)
Zacharias Kunuk, Paul Apak Angilirg, Pauloosie Qulitalik and Norman Cohn
Description
Igloolik Isuma Productions, Inc. is an Inuit independent production company, that produces film, documentaries, and TV-series, whose objective is to organize community members through participation in a collective act of reflection and expression. Through community-based Inuit-language digital filmmaking, Isuma Productions preserve the cultural history and the language of indigenous people, as well as inform them about legal rights regarding the use of their land in mining developments. For Inuit, cooperation has become a medium of production and survival. In 1991 Isuma created the first Artic independent non-profit centre, called Tarriaksuk Video Centre. Today, it carries 1300 Inuit films and videos, of a total 7000+ films and videos in 70 languages, and brings the social, political and collective power of community-based media to remote communities living worldwide.
Context
For long time Inuit community only received the national broadcast TV where none representation or access to its history, culture and language was present. Zacharias Kunuk started to make videos in 1981 and four years later, he received his first Canada Council grant to produce an independent video, from Inuk Point of view together with Paul Apak, Pauloosie Qulitalik, and Norman Cohn. In January 1990 the team founded Igloolik Isuma Productions Inc. to produce and distribute independent Inuit-language films and media art, featuring local actors recreating Inuit life in the Igloolik region in the 1930s and 1940s. Over the next ten years, Isuma helped establish an Inuit media arts centre, NITV; a youth media and circus group, Artcirq; and a women’s video collective, Arnait Video Productions. In 2004 Isuma incorporated Isuma Distribution International and in 2008 launched IsumaTV, the world’s first website for Indigenous media art now showing over 7000 films and videos in 70 languages. In 2010, Igloolik Isuma Productions closed and re-opened as Kingulliit Productions.
How to use it
You can become a member of the platform, upload and watch videos, films and TV programs from different languages and cultures.
Goals
Isuma's mission is to produce independent community-based media – films, TV and Internet - to preserve and enhance Inuit culture and language and to tell authentic Inuit stories to Inuit and non-Inuit audiences worldwide.
Beneficial outcomes
It creates jobs and economic development in Igloolik and Nunavut community.
In 1991 Isuma created the first Artic independent non-profit centre, called Tarriaksuk Video Centre.
In 2012 Kingulliit and Isuma Distribution produced Digital Indigenous Democracy, an internet network to inform and consult Inuit in low-bandwidth communities facing the Baffinland Iron Mine development.
Isuma's 30-year media art project represented Canada at the 2019 Venice Biennale with its newest feature, One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk, which then screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and won Best Canadian Film at the 2019 Vancouver International Film Festival.
Location
Canada
Field
Education, Indigenous Communities Rights, Counter-narratives
Strategy
UIT (‘use it together’), Repurpose, Artworlds (art-sustaining environments), Narratorship (talking art)
Users
Inuit community, artists, filmmakers, people worldwide
Maintained by
Zacharias Kunuk, Pauloosie Qulitalik, Norman Cohn
Duration
1990 - ongoing
Coefficient of Arte Util
74
Category
Scientific
Pedagogical
Politics
Urban Development
Economy
Environment
Social
Links
http://www.isuma.tv/en/isuma-productions
https://canadianart.ca/features/isuma-is...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film...
