A positive post

Our first positive post about life in Nunavut. Something I'd like to see more of, and something you won't read in a newspaper. Thanks for the contribution Anonymous.


We just saw a screening of "Before Tomorrow", the new film directed by Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Ivalu of Arnait Video Productions (http://www.arnaitvideo.ca/) - a women's video collective that has been putting together film productions since the early 1990's in the unique style of Inuit narrative. The film was written by the directors and Susan Avingaq.The film was co-produced with Isuma (Zach Kunuk and Norman Cohn, www.isuma.ca), and uses Igloolik and Nunavik based actors. I have a feeling the film will open (somewhere down south) to rave reviews.

The film was beautiful. The actors Madeliene Ivalu and her grandson-in-real-life and in the film, Paul Dylan, played the moving lead characters. In the film, Paul Dylan convincingly plays a mature and 'able' and focused young boy - but around town he is any one of the loony kids runnin' around. The film was funny at parts and immensly sad. Scenery and cinematography, spectacular. The screen play was adapted from a Danish novel. This is one aspect that I found so remarkable. Marie-Hélène read the book in some language (French or English?), which was translated from Danish, wrote a screenplay in English/Inuktitut with writers Ivalu and Susan Avingaq. Although the style of the films is somewhat improvisational (not directly reading from scripts) - the writing-collaboration between directors and writers who don't speak the same language is fascinating.

This women's collective and their latest product, and first feature film, is a shining example of collaboration between the Inuit and 'southerners' - through art (as are the products of Isuma). So it is possible for there to be a positive product made from the intercept of two cultures. The middle between black and white need not be mediocre and gray, but a rainbow - more than the sum of the parts. The rich and unique history and art of the Inuit, combined with the art and the technology of the south.

- Anonymous