Arnait Video Productions

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.

History

Arnait was founded in 1991 by Marie-Hélène Cousineau, Madeline Ivalu, Susan Avingaq, Carol Kunuk 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
  • Ningiura (Grandmother)
  • Qulliq
  • Attagutaaluk Starvation
  • Piujuq
  • Angutautaq

Features

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. "www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/65674nunavut_coroner_to_hold_inquest_into_igloolik_mans_jail_cell_death/". nunatsiaqonline.ca. 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.
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