Nunavut’s Qanurli? comedy troupe heads across the pond to Greenland

Qanurli’s producers are looking forward to working Greenland’s close relative of the Inuktitut language, Kalaallisut, into their APTN show. (MAP COURTESY QANURLI?)

Qanurli’s Nipangi, left, and Inuk Qablunaaq, aka Vinnie Karetak and Thomas Anguti Johnston, head to Greenland this week for their first shoot outside of the Canada. (PHOTO COURTESY QANURLI?)

SPECIAL TO NUNATSIAQ NEWS

The independent Inuit-language comedy television series Qanurli? is meeting a new milestone this week for its sixth season of production for APTN, as its core cast and crew head outside Canada for the first time to shoot in a neighbouring country that’s not so foreign.

Producers are taking the show, which translates to What Now? in English, to the Greenlandic capital, Nuuk—just an hour-and-a-half flight across the sea from their studios in Nunavut’s own capital city, Iqaluit.

When the show’s three principal actors arrive with the lead producer and director of photography May 3 in Nuuk, where they will work on a multiple-day shoot that fulfils the producers’ promise: a show for all Inuit-related peoples of the Arctic, bound by their common language and cultural roots.

“The show is an Inuit show, and Inuit aren’t only of Canada,” said Thomas Anguti Johnston, who helped create the comedy show in 2010. “Inuit are spread over four countries.”

The broad expanse of the Arctic where Inuit and their cultural relatives call home stretches from the far northeast of Russia through Alaska, Canada and Greenland, he noted.

Nuuk adds to a growing list of Inuit communities where Qanurli’s independent producers—Johnston and three co-owners of Qanukiaq Studios—have taken the show since 2015. Last year Kuujjuaq hosted the first ever shoot outside of Nunavut.

“We’re trying to share the show with as many Inuit regions as we can,” series’ lead producer Stacey Aglok MacDonald told Nunatsiaq News.

“Borders be as they may be. To Inuit, we’re all very much one and the same people, even though we’re quite spread out,” Johnston said, adding that Qanurli? is a unique opportunity to experience that common culture through a comedic medium.

“Many years ago, when we started conceptualizing the TV show in the group of us that were coming up with this, we were all different individuals from different parts of Nunavut,” Johnston said, recalling the show’s creation in 2010 with the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation.

“Nobody was from the same community. And that identity of Inuit being of the Arctic, not necessarily just Nunavut or of Canada, was central to the creation of the television show,” he said.

Johnston plays the role of one of two principal characters in the series, Inuk Qablunaaq, alongside the character Nipangi, played by Vinnie Karetak.

The show is shot entirely in the Inuit language for viewers throughout the Canadian Arctic—and its characters speak to each other in at least four of Nunavut’s distinct regional dialects.

Karetak hails from Arviat, and Johnston from Igloolik. The series from the start called for them to speak in their own dialects—even though the actors’ two regional varieties of Inuktitut are different enough that they did not completely understand each other, the actors recalled.

The show forged ahead with its unique formula. Scripts would be written in English, and the actors would translate and deliver the lines in their own version of the Inuit language. The show’s broadcasts would include subtitles in English, to allow as many viewers as possible to understand.

“It has always been part of the identity that Qanurli? be a show of Inuit, despite borders that keep us apart, a lot of the time,” Johnston recalled. “We wanted the show to include all Inuit regions and ways of life.”

The series started as more of a comedy variety show for youth, loosely based on “Wayne’s World” and Saturday Night Live.

It has since grown into a comedy series for all ages with full seasonal story arcs. Some elements of the original show remain, such as comedic skits of fake newscasts, and spoofs of commercials, movies and music videos.

“We don’t limit ourselves too much,” lead producer MacDonald said. “We just go by creativity and what we think is fun.”

Broadcast nationally on APTN, the series is now an independent production of Qanukiaq Studios, owned and operated in Iqaluit by Johnston, Karetak, MacDonald, and Joshua Qaumariaq.

Johnston and Karetak’s characters are still the show’s lead characters. The series tells the story of their ongoing quest to broadcast their own Inuktitut-language show from a tent just outside of Iqaluit. Malaya Qaunirq Chapman plays two regular characters who are also part of the quest: identical twins UU and AA.

The three actors will be in Nuuk from May 3 to May 9 with MacDonald and Qaumariaq. The group will finalize casting of Greenlandic primary actors and extras in the city with the help of a local coordinator, and carry out four days of shooting at pre-arranged locations.

Qanukiaq Studios put out an advance casting call to Greenlanders on the show’s Facebook page, and the high response rate—amounting to more than 100 shares by the end of April—reflects the show’s high Greenlandic following on social media.

Online statistics suggest that Qanurli? attracts viewers in Nuuk, a city with more than double Iqaluit’s population. Yet Greenlandic residents are only able to watch the show online through YouTube, the APTN website and social media, since the show isn’t broadcast in their country.

As in Nunavut, the show’s characters will interact in their own regional dialects, with English subtitles to help viewers follow. The cast and crew look forward to including Greenland’s Kalaallisut language—a close relative of Inuktut—seamlessly within the full slate of 13 episodes for the 2017-2018 broadcast season.

“We’re really excited to go,” MacDonald said. “It will be fun, I think, even for Inuit here in Nunavut, to hear some Kalaallisut on our show.”