Tag Archives: First Nations

Industry News

Uvagut TV Breaks Ground as Canada’s First Inuit-Language TV Channel

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From a media release:

At 12:01 a.m. Monday, January 18, Nunavut Independent Television (NITV) makes history when it launches Canada’s first all-Inuit Inuktut TV channel.

Uvagut TV (“Our” TV) will broadcast 168 hours a week of Inuit-produced culture, arts, movies and information programming available nationally to more than 610,000* Shaw Direct customers as well as Arctic Co-ops Cable subscribers in Nunavut and NWT. Other satellite and cable systems will be added over the months ahead. Viewers around the world can stream Uvagut TV online 24/7 at uvagut.tv
(* Subscriber count current as of November 30, 2020)

Breaking ground as the first Indigenous–language channel and, with APTN, only the second Indigenous television service among 762 broadcasting in Canada, Uvagut TV increases total Indigenous-language television programming available to Canadian audiences by 500%.

Uvagut TV builds on the hard work of countless people over the past four decades who dreamed it was possible to deliver Inuktut television to Inuit audiences to preserve, promote and revitalize Inuit culture and language. The team behind Uvagut TV represented Canada at the 2019 Venice Biennale of Art, presenting the Inuit-language film One Day in the Life of Noah Piugattuk to mark the 2019 United Nations Year of Indigenous Languages.

“For me, Uvagut TV is a dream come true – to see Inuit culture and to hear our language full time on TV,” says Lucy Tulugarjuk, NITV Chair and Executive Director, and director of the Inuit-language children’s film, Tia and Piujuq. “As our elders pass away, we are fighting against time to keep Inuit culture and language alive for our children and grandchildren. TV in Inuktut all day every day is a powerful way to keep a living language for future generations.”

Filmmaker Dr. Zacharias Kunuk O.C., NITV co-founder and Head of Isuma, welcomes the historic breakthrough. “We’ve been independent from day one and after 35 years we finally have our own channel,” he says. “Our ancestors survived by the strength of their wits and their community. These new ways of storytelling can help Inuit survive for another thousand years. People who turn on Uvagut TV any time of day or night will see our own stories in our own language.”

Uvugat TV broadcasts five hours every day of Inuktut children’s programs including Inuit Broadcasting Corporation’s award-winning Takuginai series and programs by Inuvialuit Communications Society; shows by Isuma, Arnait Video, Artcirq, Kingulliit and Taqqut Productions; award-winning Inuktut movies like Atanarjuat The Fast Runner; classic series, documentaries and new programs like Silakut Live From the Floe Edge and Tunnganarnik broadcasting live from Nunavut communities and the remote arctic wilderness. Uvagut TV also will include live coverage of the upcoming Nunavut Impact Review Board Public Hearings into the controversial Baffinland Iron Mine Phase 2 expansion, bringing vital transparent coverage of this issue live to Inuit, national and global audiences.

About Uvagut TV & NITV
Uvagut TV is Canada’s first 24/7 Inuktut television channel created by Nunavut Independent Television Network (NITV) and IsumaTV with programs from Inuit Broadcasting Corporation and other Inuit independent producers hosted on www.isuma.tv. NITV is an Inuit-owned and controlled non-profit Northern Online Distributor and Eligible Broadcaster. Founded in 1991 in Igloolik, Nunavut, as a training centre for Inuit community filmmaking, NITV is dedicated to the enhancement and preservation of Inuktut and Inuit culture through the creation and exhibition of Inuit video art linking Nunavut communities through Internet television channels and local access internet-TV, media training and digital literacy initiatives, and the production and distribution of Inuktut video, film, and now broadcast television.

Uvagut TV gratefully acknowledges launch support provided by the Indigenous Screen Office.

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Industry News

Link: APTN celebrates 20 years of representing Indigenous peoples

From Melissa Hank of Postmedia:

Link: APTN celebrates 20 years of representing Indigenous peoples
“We always knew that there needed to be a network that represented us, a network that was true to who we were and that allowed us to learn the technical skills to tell our stories. Now we could actually see ourselves and hear our stories.” Continue reading.Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: APTN’s First Contact returns to educate and inform

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A year ago, First Contact debuted on APTN. The three-night broadcast event explored Indigenous culture through the eyes of six Canadians. Narrated by George Stroumboulopoulos, First Contact followed those six on a 28-day adventure to Winnipeg, Nunavut, Alberta, Northern Ontario and the coast of B.C. to visit Indigenous communities to challenge their preconceived notions and prejudices.

Now, First Contact returns for a second season. Hosted by George Stroumboulopoulos and broadcast over three nights—Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on APTN—it once again seeks to inform and educate Canadians about First Nations people, culture and beliefs, and rid them of some preconceptions along the way. In my preview of Season 1, I wrote about growing up in Brantford, Ont. Located close to the Six Nations of the Grand River, I heard the awful, racist jokes uttered by more than one person in that city. In Season 2, a fellow Brantfordian takes part.

Sixty-two-year-old Larry Harris works in shipping and receiving and enters First Contact believing anything bad that befalls Indigenous Peoples are their own fault. So, does he change his tune over the 28-day experience? Certainly not within the first few minutes. Larry voices the opinion we are still shouldering the guilt for those who took the land away from the First Nations. Participants Brennan Kovic and Laurianne Bencharski say similar things, the latter that anytime a white person speaks about Indigenous Peoples they’re labelled a racist.

A group of people participate in a First Nations dance.Twenty-six-year-old Samantha Whitehead, meanwhile, has a different view. She has never met a member of the First Nations and is genuinely interested in being educated. As for Jackson Way, the 19-year-old from Midland, Ont.—who hopes to teach history one day—believes taking benefits away from Indigenous Peoples will force the community “to work to get certain things.” He wonders if the current system is trying to make up for what happened in the past.

The six head to Kanesatake, QC, and learn the other side of the story of the 1990 Oka Siege—a very different tale from what Larry tells Brennan and Samantha on the bus there—and then in Natuashish, Labrador, time spent with the local Innu Peoples sheds new light on its residents and history.

In Episode 2, the six participants travel to Thunder Bay, where a number of incidents have exposed racist attitudes towards Indigenous Peoples prior to a meeting with residential school survivors in southern Ontario.

In the emotionally charged final episode, the six travel to Saskatchewan. Once there, they meet with people from communities deeply affected by the death and trial of Colten Boushie. At the conclusion of Episode 3, the Indigenous hosts and producers will sit down in an interactive panel, live on Facebook

First Contact airs Tuesday-Thursday at 8 p.m. ET on APTN.

Images courtesy of APTN.Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail

Industry News

INIS sets up new training program thanks to support from Netflix

From a media release:

INIS (L’institut national de l’image et du son) announced today that it has secured Netflix’s support to develop and implement, over the next three years, a brand-new film and television production apprenticeship program intended for participants from First Nations, Aboriginal communities and diverse cultural backgrounds in Quebec. This is Netflix’s first partnership agreement with a Quebec organization as part of its commitment to support industry development opportunities in Canada, with a focus on developing the next generation of Canadian creators and talent.

The creation of this intensive six-month program is a continuation of many actions carried out by INIS in recent years. These actions were all intended to encourage the arrival and accelerate the professional development of new creators in the audiovisual sector so that they can share their vision and reality through documentary and fiction. This new program will promote access to high quality training for talented and motivated individuals.

Offered at a low cost to its participants, the program will be developed with the collaboration of several partners who already work with targeted clientele. It aims to counter the exclusion often experienced by members of these communities. By taking the proven structure of INIS and its educational philosophy, the program will cover essentials, alternating theoretical workshops (always centred on the practice) as well as a series of concrete creative exercises, offering the possibility to apply the learnings in a tangible way.

INIS plans to recruit nine students – three scriptwriters, three directors and three producers – for each edition of the program to be offered in 2019, 2020 and 2021.

The agreement with Netflix also includes scholarships for emerging professionals from First Nations, Aboriginal communities and diverse cultural backgrounds to access other regular programs offered by the institution.

INIS contributes to the development of the professional environment of film, television and interactive media in Quebec and Canada by providing individuals and businesses with training and support programs that promote diversity of content and meet the needs of the public requirements and changes in the audiovisual, communications and entertainment markets. INIS is the recognized training mutual in the audiovisual sector. INIS is supported by the Quebec Ministry of Culture and Communications and the Commission of Labor Market Partners; by its main partner, Corus Media; its major partners, the INIS Foundation, Technicolor, NBCUniversal, UDA, DGC and AQTIS as well as their respective members.

 

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