'The industry has grown and now we have to grow our &#39f;unding; and our policies.'

For the first time in more than a year, Nunavut Film has a chief executive officer.

George Ritter, who has worked as everything from a sound man to a consultant for the New Democratic Party's Canadian heritage critic, took over the job earlier this fall.

"The first order of business is to make [the film industry grow]," Ritter said. "There's been a fair amount of progress made here, although everything is new in Nunavut, including Nunavut Film, and there's growing pains along the way."

"The industry has grown and now we have to grow our funding and our policies in order to keep pace with the industry."

Nunavut Film already has more requests for labour rebates and funding than it has money available. Six Nunavut companies will receive $300,000 in rebates this year, though Nunavut Film received requests for $664,000.

The agency also doled out $175,000 in program funding while getting applications totaling $235,000.

Ritter said the jump in funding applications is good news for Nunavut's film industry, indicating an increase in the number of projects and skilled filmmakers and media workers.

"There seems to be new people entering the industry and there are those that have been around for awhile who have made incredible advances," Ritter said, pointing to John Houston's Drumsong Communications, whose film Kiviuq was released to positive reviews this year.

And Igloolik Isuma Productions continues to churn out well-received films, releasing the documentary Kiviaq Versus Canada in March, with the feature Before Tomorrow in post-production and the documentary Exile in production.

While the industry itself is strong, Nunavut Film has had its struggles.

Ritter will be charged with turning around an organization that has gone without a CEO since March of 2006. And Norman Cohn blasted Nunavut Film last year after Isuma Igloolik cancelled the Nunavut leg of a tour that was showing The Journals of Knut Rasmussen in communities in Nunavut, Nunavik, and Greenland.

That tour hinged on funding from Nunavut Film, which didn't arrive before the March 31 government fiscal deadline. That prompted Cohn to call "the film situation in Nunavut … really, really disgraceful."

But Ritter said Nunavut Film has worked with producers to tweak funding requests so producers have better odds of landing funding two years in a row if they need it.

"There's no guarantees… that funding will be on the table if we look at it two years from now," he said.

"But there's no promises at any level."