Daron Letts
Northern News Services

Iglulik (July 04/05) - The heads of Nunavut's only independent film company are criticizing the way aboriginal film is funded in Canada.

Igloolik Isuma Productions co-founders Zacharias Kunuk and Norm Cohn say the prevailing funding model doesn't promote independent filmmaking.

"There's a big vested lobby in Nunavut for aboriginal welfare filmmaking," Cohn said. "That refers to the quasi-governmental non-profit filmmaking agencies that get sole-source funding from the governments of Canada, Nunavut or other governments.

"They suck up the vast majority of the money available to aboriginal media and it's basically produced by the government."

Cohn and Kunuk level their critique at the film funding structure that serves Nunavut's Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC).

Since 1983, the federal department of Canadian Heritage has funded 13 native communications societies, including IBC, through the Northern Native Broadcast Access Program (NNBAP).

Isuma tried to compete for NNBAP money in 1997, but were told that it is not a tendered process, said Cohn.

"Isuma can't access NNBAP money because IBC is already sucking its milk out of it," said Kunuk, who worked at IBC from 1984-1991.

"But Isuma is trailblazing while the IBC is going horizontally."

IBC operates five production centres in the territory that employ 30 Inuit.

One Inuk is employed in Ottawa. IBC's three non-Inuit employees, executive director Debbie Brisebois, executive assistant Melanie Legault and financial co-ordinator Janet Brummel, are also based in Ottawa.

IBC has an annual budget of $2.4 million, down from $3.1 million in 1990, said Brummel.

It receives at least 60 per cent of its annual funding from Heritage Canada and about $300,000, or 12 per cent of the budget, from the Nunavut government's department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth.

The rest of IBC's funding comes from licence fees, fundraising and occasionally from contracts through its business arm, Inuit Communications Systems Limited (ICSL), with which Isuma sometimes competes for funding.

Hiring Inuit

ICSL hires about 20 Inuit in Iqaluit to work on productions for government and corporate clients every year.

The Nunavut Film Commission contributed $130,000 over two fiscal years to ICSL for a series scheduled for the fall.

All five of IBC's regular television programs, about 4.5 hours a week, are produced through APTN. They include a children's series, a youth series, a cultural series, a weekly live call-in show and a news program that includes a 13-episode cooking show.

IBC produces documentary programming when funding is available from Telefilm, though no such projects are planned this year, said Brummell.

ICSL also has contracts with the Nunavut government to produce public service announcements and to provide audio-visual services to the legislative assembly.

Monopoly rights

ICSL holds monopoly rights to sell Sony equipment in the North. It rents crews and equipment to broadcasters such as ABC, CBC and the BBC.

Cohn contrasts IBC's sole-source funding model with what he calls professional filmmaking, which sees a producer take a territorial or provincial government grant and increase the film's budget 10-fold by securing additional monies through Telefilm Canada, the Canadian Television Fund and Revenue Canada tax credits.

"That way you make a bigger film with a bigger audience and you employ more people along the way," he said.