Iqaluit (Jan 22/07) - In Nunavut and the NWT, filmmakers are struggling to get projects off the ground.

In both jurisdictions, filmmakers have run into obstacles, hampered by a lack of funding initiatives, high costs, and underdeveloped infrastructure.

In the NWT, Fort Smith author Richard Van Camp stated he wants to have the film adaptation of his first novel, The Lesser Blessed, shot in the North. He hoped this would spark further projects in the territory.

"I'm not sure it will happen up here, but I want it to happen up here," he said. "All it's going to take is one movie to be made in the North properly."

In Nunavut, The Dark Room, a pilot for a prospective CBC TV series set to the backdrop of global warming, was filmed partially in Iqaluit.

The Dark Room director Bruce MacDonald told CBC the hard deadlines for labour rebates and funding in Nunavut make the loose, often last-minute art of filmmaking a struggle in the territory.

"It's difficult because the funds are always over-subscribed, they're capped and juried," said Ajjiit Nunavut Media Association president and filmmaker John Houston, who worked with MacDonald on the project.

He said filmmakers in Nunavut draw from a set pot of funds each year, which leaves little room for new projects, such as a potentially multi-million-dollar operation like The Dark Room.

"It's like trying to go full speed ahead with the brakes on," said Houston.

Much of this can be ascribed to the relatively new nature of the Nunavut filmmaking industry, its now four-year-old film commission (Nunavut Film) and the territory itself, according to Nunavut Film board member Bob Long.

He said the commission was trying its best to juggle funding on a year-by-year basis.

"This is the only workable solution," he said of the current funding situation. "We don't change the policy. It's (the Government of Nunavut's) policy and we are trying to work within it."

While Nunavut's filmmaking industry is in its infancy, in the NWT it is almost non-existent.

"There isn't really any money I can apply for," said Christina Piovesan, whose company, First Generation Films, is set to produce the Lesser Blessed.

While she said her company is "committed to shooting (the film) here," they have received offers from other parts of the country and the clock is ticking.

"It all comes down to the timeline," she said. With plans to start filming in the fall, she worries that the lack of funding and trained people in the NWT will push the film elsewhere.

"I think Richard is right to push this forward," she said. "There's no reason why there shouldn't be a production there, and no reason why it should go to the Yukon."

Gary Singer, director of investment and economic analysis with the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, said the only funding incentives available to filmmakers through the NWT film commission are from the general business development fund (BDF).

"We have limited funding for BDF," he added. "The total is just over $1 million for the whole territory." He said much of this money goes towards "sustainable" projects that will have long-term benefits to the NWT.

"Films go to areas where they can find the best combination of incentives and low cost," he said. "We're a high-cost jurisdiction of the country."

Meanwhile in the Yukon, things are booming, according to Yukon Film and Sound Commission film officer Iris Merritt.

She said the territory has been home to several film, television and commercial productions, which she calls the "bread and butter" of the local industry.

"There are labour rebates for hiring local people and cash rebates for the production," she said of Yukon's incentives, which also include travel rebates and film training initiatives for local industry.

She said the lack of provincial taxes works as an incentive as well. Provinces routinely offer to rebate portions of this tax as a further incentive.

"We're not competing with anyone, really," Merritt said. "We just want to have films up here."

Norman Cohn, co-founder of Igloolik Isuma Productions, the company behind The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, and the Genie-award winning Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, said he felt positive about recent developments in Nunavut's film industry.

"For the first time, we received funding before the end of the fiscal year," he said. "That was an extraordinary development."

Though the company is filming its next feature (titled Before Tomorrow) in Northern Quebec, it still works extensively in Nunavut, allowing it to draw on multiple sources of income, such as national Telefilm funding, SODEC funding in Quebec and Nunavut Film.

"Dealing with SODEC is a nightmare," he said. "Telefilm is a nightmare. Dealing with all of these bureaucracies are nightmares. That's why Nunavut can't be even more of nightmare."