Nunavut production company gets funding for two new TV projects

Zacharias Kunuk, one of Kingulliit Productions Inc.’s founders, receiving the Caméra d’Or prize in 2001 at the Cannes Film Festival for his feature film Atanarjuat. His new production company, Kingulliit, will receive nearly $800,000 this year from the Canada Media Fund for two new television projects. (FILE PHOTO)

Two new television projects are on the way from Igloolik’s Kingulliit Productions Inc.

The Canada Media Fund announced July 28 that Kingulliit will receive $762,984 in 2014-15 under it’s Aboriginal Program funding for a television film project and a series called Stories of our Elders.

Kingulliit, founded by award-winning filmmakers Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn in 2010, is the company that replaced Igloolik Isuma Productions when it became insolvent in 2011.

The film, entitled Malinaqputiit — The Searchers, is a historical drama that takes place in the early 1900s, according to the CMF website.

Filmed in North Baffin, Malinaqputiit tells the story of a man and his teenage son who go hunting and return to their iglu to find two grandparents and a child have been murdered and the man’s wife and 12-year-old daughter have been kidnapped.

The man, Uik, then begins a relentless search to find the remains of his family and determine what happened, “in a brutal, bone-wearying chase under the iron grip of a frigid land and endless sky,” says a project description on the CMF website.

The CMF is giving $400,000 to the project.

The other project, the elders’ stories series, is a “mix of 2D animation with live-action footage” to create an Inuktitut oral history of Canadian Inuit.

“Culturally rich and visually stunning, the series portrays the most resonant characters, myths and legends — something sure to please both Inuit and non-Inuit alike,” says that item’s CMF project description.

The series will receive $362,984 from the CMF.

The Canada Media Fund will be supporting 15 projects under its Aboriginal Program in the 2014-15 year for a total of $6.3 million.

Projects hail from Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Nunavut.

Malinaqputiit is the only film drama which will receive funding this coming year. The remainder are documentaries and children and youth productions.

The CMF is funded through Canada’s cable and satellite distributers such as Bell, Rogers and Telus, as well as the Government of Canada.

Go here to see what other projects are included in this round of funding.