Indigenous film and media fest features Inuit talent

Arnait Video Productions’ SOL tells the story of Solomon Tapatia Uyarasuk, a 26-year-old musician and Artcirq performer who died in 2012 while in police custody. (PHOTO COURTESY OF ARNAIT VIDEO)

A scene from the short film Aviliaq shot in Iqaluit earlier this year. (PHOTO BY SHAWN INUKSUK)

Four Nunavut-made films will appear on the big screen at the ImagineNative Film and Media Arts Festival in Toronto this week.

The world’s largest indigenous festival showing film, video, radio and new media runs from Oct. 22 to 26.

Its line-up includes the world premiere of the documentary Sol, co-directed by Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Susan Avingaq of Igloolik’s Arnait Video Productions.

Sol tells the story of 26-year-old Solomon Tapatia Uyarasuk, a popular Igloolik musician and Artcirq performer. In 2012, Uyarasuk died while in custody at the Igloolik RCMP detachment.

While it’s widely believed that he died by suicide, his family and friends continue to questions the circumstances around his death.

The film screens Oct. 24, a month before the Office of the Chief Coroner of Nunavut will hold an inquest into Uyasaruk’s death in Igloolik later next month.

Other Nunavut films screening at ImagineNative include:

• The Orphan and the Polar Bear, an animated version of the book of the same name retold by elder Sakiasi Qanauq and published by Inhabit Media.

The nine-minute film tells the story of a young boy who is abandoned on the sea ice and adopted by an elder polar bear.

• Kajutaijuq: The Spirit That Comes which tells the story of a modern hunter who stumbles into an area haunted by a mischievous spirit.

The film, starring Johnny Issaluk and Laakuluk Williamson-Bathory, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last month.

• during the festival’s closing gala, film-goers will get to see the world premiere of Aviliaq, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril’s romantic drama about two Inuit lesbians living in polygamous relationships set in the Eastern Arctic of the 1950s.

Arnaquq-Baril will also appear as part of a panel of female artists speaking at the closing gala ceremony.

You can read more about the ImagineNative festival line-up here.