Film still, SOS Iceberg, from Greenland Eyes Film Festival’s facebook page. The festival is the last week in April in Berlin, it’s the first of it’s kind. I think I may try to go, if it does not conflict with my exams.
Isuma production’s offices in Igloolik, Nunavut. “Isuma” means “Think” - in the imperative. So the pretext for all of their films, as well as the message they proclaim to the town and throughtou Inuit Nunaata, is to think.
They have been a key component in redefining and represerving Inuit culture - through their documentaries, their short films/video art that ask viewers to consider the intricacies and lyricism of traditional life as art in itself, and their fictional films that illustrate legends as well as help contextualize ‘traditional life’ in the medium we are used to seeing it on film, through human relationships. But they have also been important in establishing Nunavut’s self-sufficient postmodern relations to the rest of Canada and the world. Before Isuma came about, television was not common in Nunavut, and there were no programmes in Inuit languages. In addition to their independent work, it’s founders lobbied for changes in broadcasting and helped establish Inuit language programmes in the late ’80s. They both set example for how Inuit identity can be expressed on film and showed that Nunavummiut can engage with the rest of the world, in their own language, and that this is just as important for preserving and evolving culture as documenting the lives of those on the land.
If you click on the photo it will take you to their website where you can stream their major works, or download them. I have only seen Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner (which I happily own) and some short films but can not wait to see the rest. For downloading they charge pay-what-you-can. Do NOT take advantage of this - Isuma is in financial trouble, they have stoped production for the time and their assets are being held. DO pay what you can if you wish to download and realize that the option to download for free is mostly designed for schools and community organizations. They say the average donation is 10$, I think everyone on tumblr can afford that. And if you can’t then stream them, the quality is the same. I definitely recommend that anyone of circumpolar persuasions sees them. When the Western film industry - richer than most people will ever be, churning out generic throw-away ‘entertainment’ - is overriding communication freedoms to save the smallest amount of profit, it is a tremendous gift that a small film company finds producing high-quality, culturally rich work and making it available to all, to be important enough to risk its owners’ stability.
