Iqaluit (Feb 21/05) - In a snow-covered shack in Iglulik, some women are busy sewing traditional Inuit garments.

But it's not all serious as Elizabeth Angutirjuaq, Margaret Kipsigak, Atuat Akittirq, Mary Ammaq and Deborah Qunnaq occasionally break into laughter while they work.

Young women from the community sit close by in the stove-heated shack, watching the older ladies and learning.

The garments are for actors who will be in a new movie Isuma Productions expects to start shooting in April.

The film, titled The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, is still being cast.

The large families to be depicted in the film who will be wearing these traditional clothes are still only stick figures on the wall upstairs in the Isuma office.

The stick figures are part of getting all the names and families straight, says Paul Quassa with Isuma.

The production company has produced many dramatic films including Qaggiq (1998), Nunaqpa (1990), Saputi (1993) and the 13-part dramatic television series Nunavut in 1994-95.

Movie success

But it was the success of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner filmed in 1999 that really catapulted Isuma Productions, and the community of Iglulik, onto the world stage.

Atanarjuat won a Golden Camera award at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in 2001. The Journals of Knud Rasmussen is about the Christian-European influence on Iglulik.

Like most of Isuma's films, the story will be told from the Inuit perspective.

Company president and film director Zacharias Kunuk is away touring with Inuit artifacts in New York and Washington. But when he returns the pace is sure to pick up even more than it has, said Quassa.

"It's really picked up now," said Quassa.

"After the New Year it's amazing how quickly everything is happening now," said Quassa.