Kuujjuaq, Iqaluit on Quebec Cinema’s tournée Canadienne

The late Charlie Adams and Jayson Kunnuk from the film Qallunajatut (Urban Inuk/ with English subtitles) will be screened at the Katittavik town hall theatre May 15 at 7:30 p.m.. (HANDOUT PHOTO)

The Quebec Cinema Canadian Tour is heading north this week — to Kuujjuaq and then to Iqaluit.

Nunavik filmmaker Jobie Weetaluktuk will remain in Kuujjuaq until May 17 to meet film lovers and students and to present two of his films in Kuujjuaq for the first time.

On May 15 at 7:30 p.m., Weetaluktuk’s 2005 documentary Qallunajatut (Urban Inuk/ with English subtitles) will be screened at the Katittavik town hall theatre, with director Weetaluktuk in attendance.

Urban Inuk follows the lives of three Inuit in Montreal over the course of a hot and humid summer which finds Jayson Kunnuk and his friend Charlie Adams (the late renowned Nunavik singer-songwriter) homeless on the streets of the city.

There, they meet Pitsulala Lyta. Originally from Iqaluit, Lyta, who first came to Montreal at age 17 and lived on the streets for many years, has turned her life around and is now dedicated to helping homeless Inuit — like Adams and Kunnuk — get their bearings in the city.

Urban Inuk has been shown around the world and won many awards, including the Grand Prize — Rigoberta Menchu Community Award at Montreal First People’s Festival in 2006, and, in 2009, the Material Culture and Archaeology Film award presented by the Royal Anthropological Institute at the Metropolitan University of Leeds, England.

Urban Inuk will be preceded by Inukshop, a short film, also by Weetaluktuk, which combines archival footage and new material to shed light on the different ways in which Inuit culture has been appropriated throughout history.

From May 13 to May 16, Weetaluktuk will also visit Jaanimmarik School where the Montreal-based filmmaker will talk about his career and creative approach in a master class.

A series of practical workshops will introduce students to the basic techniques of composition, camera operation, sound capture and editing, with the goal of making a short film.

Among Weetaluktuk’s other films:

• Umiaq Skin Boat from 2008, about a group of elders who build a traditional boat, which premiered at Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival in 2008, and has since been screened at numerous festivals around the world; and,

• Kakalakkuvik, “where the children dwell,” from 2008 which uses archival footage, old photographs, and songs, to recount the memories of students from Port Harrison (now Inukjuak).

The film, short and bittersweet, focuses on the children — like Weetaluktuk and others from today’s community Inukjuak, who found themselves living at the hostel instead of home with their parents.

Weetaluktuk presented Kakalakkuvik at last month’s Truth and Reconciliation event in Montreal, where its screening sparked discussion, he told Nunatsiaq News.

The Quebec film tour then heads to Iqaluit May 17 and May 18.

Two Quebec movies will be screened at the Francophone Association building:

• Esimesac, May 17, at 7 p,m., about how one man tries changes the miserable lives of people living in the community of Saint-Élie-de-Caxton;

• Le nord au coeur, May 18 at 7 p.m, a film that tracks the return north of the elderly Louis-Emond Hamelin, now 90, who devoted his career to raising awareness about Quebec’s northern aboriginal peoples and started the Centre for Northern Studies at Université Laval.