Inuuvunga: I Am Inuk, I Am Alive
Encyclopedia
Inuuvunga: I Am Inuk, I Am Alive is a joint 58-minute 2004 documentary
about Inuit
high school students in Inukjuak, Quebec
, Nunavik
(Quebec
), documenting their final year in the high school.
Filmed in Inuktitut
with subtitles in English
, it was produced by National Film Board of Canada
(NFB), (including Sally Bochner as executive producer and Pierre Lapointe as producer) and chronicles the students' efforts to learn how to come of age in a rapidly changing culture, while coping with issues like suicide and substance abuse.
NFB dispatched EyeSteelFilm
directors Daniel Cross
, Mila Aung-Thwin
, Brett Gaylor
to the Inukjuak – Innalik School in Nunavik, Quebec, to teach the students the skills of filming. The students who took part in the filming were Bobby Echalook, Caroline Ningiuk, Dora Ohaituk, Laura Iqaluk, Linus Kasudluak, Rita-Lucy Ohaituk, Sarah Idlout and Willia Ningeok).
Hockey
, hip hop
, hunting and midnight Ski-Doo rides. Welcome to Inukjuak. It's the final year of high school for eight teens at Innalik school in this remote town in northern Quebec. These eight students, through the initiative of NFB, have been selected to document this pivotal year of their lives. To teach them some basics, the NFB has dispatched filmmakers Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin. The result of their collaboration is Inuuvunga, a vibrant and utterly contemporary view of life in Canada's North. The students use their new film skills to address a broad range of issues, from the widening communication gap with their elders to the loss of their peers to suicide. Throughout, they reveal an unusual and fascinating mix of southern and northern cultures. Seamless and startling, Inuuvunga paints a rich portrait of coming of age in an Inuit town and helps to dispel the myths of northern isolation and desolation. Instead, we discover a place where hope and strength overcome struggle.
Documentary film
Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...
about Inuit
Inuit
The Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Canada , Denmark , Russia and the United States . Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language...
high school students in Inukjuak, Quebec
Inukjuak, Quebec
Inukjuak , alternatively spelled Inoucdjouac, former name and current postal name Port Harrison, is an Inuit settlement located on Hudson Bay at the mouth of the Innuksuak River in the Nunavik region of northern Quebec, Canada. Its population is 1,294...
, Nunavik
Nunavik
Nunavik comprises the northern third of the province of Quebec, Canada. Covering a land area of 443,684.71 km² north of the 55th parallel, it is the homeland of the Inuit of Quebec...
(Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
), documenting their final year in the high school.
Filmed in Inuktitut
Inuktitut
Inuktitut or Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, Eastern Canadian Inuit language is the name of some of the Inuit languages spoken in Canada...
with subtitles in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, it was produced by National Film Board of Canada
National Film Board of Canada
The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
(NFB), (including Sally Bochner as executive producer and Pierre Lapointe as producer) and chronicles the students' efforts to learn how to come of age in a rapidly changing culture, while coping with issues like suicide and substance abuse.
NFB dispatched EyeSteelFilm
EyeSteelFilm
EyeSteelFilm is a Montreal-based Canadian cinema production company founded and co-owned by Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin, dedicated to socially engaged cinema, bringing social and political change through cinematic expression...
directors Daniel Cross
Daniel Cross (filmmaker)
Daniel Cross a Canadian documentary filmmaker, producer and activist whose films deal with social justice.He is co-founder of EyeSteelFilm with fellow director/producer Mila Aung-Thwin. He is the president of the company...
, Mila Aung-Thwin
Mila Aung-Thwin
Mila Aung-Thwin is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, producer and activist whose films deal with social justice.He had a multi-disciplinary education in arts, journalism, and photography. In 1998, he met his fellow director/producer Daniel Cross and co-founded with him EyeSteelFilm specilaizing in...
, Brett Gaylor
Brett Gaylor
Brett Gaylor is a Canadian documentary filmmaker living in Montreal, Quebec. Born in 1977, he grew up on Galiano Island, British Columbia. He is a member director of EyeSteelFilm documentary production company and its Head of New Media....
to the Inukjuak – Innalik School in Nunavik, Quebec, to teach the students the skills of filming. The students who took part in the filming were Bobby Echalook, Caroline Ningiuk, Dora Ohaituk, Laura Iqaluk, Linus Kasudluak, Rita-Lucy Ohaituk, Sarah Idlout and Willia Ningeok).
Synopsis
In the remote northern town of Inukjuak, Nunavik, 8 Inuit teenagers are given cameras to document their final year of high school. The film chronicles their efforts to learn how to come of age in a rapidly-changing culture, while coping with issues like suicide and substance abuse.Hockey
Hockey
Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:...
, hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
, hunting and midnight Ski-Doo rides. Welcome to Inukjuak. It's the final year of high school for eight teens at Innalik school in this remote town in northern Quebec. These eight students, through the initiative of NFB, have been selected to document this pivotal year of their lives. To teach them some basics, the NFB has dispatched filmmakers Daniel Cross and Mila Aung-Thwin. The result of their collaboration is Inuuvunga, a vibrant and utterly contemporary view of life in Canada's North. The students use their new film skills to address a broad range of issues, from the widening communication gap with their elders to the loss of their peers to suicide. Throughout, they reveal an unusual and fascinating mix of southern and northern cultures. Seamless and startling, Inuuvunga paints a rich portrait of coming of age in an Inuit town and helps to dispel the myths of northern isolation and desolation. Instead, we discover a place where hope and strength overcome struggle.
External links
- Watch Inuuvunga: I Am Inuk, I Am Alive at NFB.ca (Requires Adobe FlashAdobe FlashAdobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
) - EyeSteelFilm page about Inuuvunga: I Am Inuk, I Am alive
- Inukjuak - Innalik School website