Indigenous film office needs permanent funding, says Nunavut film corp. CEO

3-year federal funding commitment to Indigenous Screen Office expires in 2024; no word yet on possible renewal

The Indigenous Screen Office was looking for an increase in funding and a commitment to permanent funding in the 2023 federal budget, but did not receive either. Nunavut Film Development Corporation chief executive officer Huw Eirug said the absence of a permanent funding commitment was surprising and “unfathomable.” (File photo)

By David Lochead

It’s “unfathomable” that the federal government would not commit to permanently funding an organization that supports Indigenous filmmaking in Canada, says the chief executive officer of the Nunavut Film Development Corp.

“It’s a total surprise,” Huw Eirug told Nunatsiaq News in an interview.

The Indigenous Screen Office funds and advocates for Indigenous filmmaking projects, including Inuit projects. It has a three-year funding commitment with the Department of Canadian Heritage where it receives $13 million per year.

That funding is set to end in 2024 with no commitment of future funding.

Nunavut Film Development Corp. has received more than a million dollars from the Indigenous Screen Office over the past few years to support Nunavut projects, according to Eirug.

“It’s substantial,” he said.

He pointed to a new TV comedy series recently green lit by Netflix and APTN that will be filmed in Nunavut. The still-unnamed project, created by Red Marrow Media, is one example of how the office has helped to fund Inuit filmmaking.

And projects like these contribute to keeping Inuit languages and culture alive, Eirug said.

Not only that, Eirug said, but Nunavut’s film industry contributes to the territory’s economy: for every dollar of film production Nunavut Film funds, the actual amount spent in the territory is five dollars.

“That’s a huge impact,” he said.

The Indigenous Screen Office stated in a letter to the federal government April 6 that it is disappointed that its request for permanent funding was left out of the 2023 federal budget.

Nunavut Film Development Corp. announced in its April 17 newsletter that it supports the screen office.

The screen office offered two recommendations in its pre-budget submission to the federal government in 2022 – for the federal government to confirm permanent funding, and to more than double its annual funding, to $27 million.

Included in the push for increased permanent funding was a letter of support from award-winning Inuit filmmaker Zacharius Kunuk.

“For many years I felt alone in a fight to be taken seriously in this industry,” Kunuk said in the letter, adding he felt the system was rigged against him, with people always giving reasons for why he would not receive funding.

“It was exhausting,” Kunuk said.

However, he said, the Indigenous Screen Office has helped him and others in the Indigenous film industry, adding it was critical in supporting the launch of Uvagut TV.

It’s still possible that funding for the Indigenous Screen Office could be renewed before the current allocation expires in 2024.

Laura Scaffidi, press secretary to Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, told Nunatsiaq News it is in the minister’s mandate letter to support the ISO.

That letter, from the Office of the Prime Minister and given to Rodriquez when he was appointed minister in December 2021, includes the commitment of “providing the Indigenous Screen Office with additional funding so more Indigenous stories can be told and seen.”

Scaffidi also said Bill C-11, also known as the Online Streaming Act, will require online streaming platforms like Netflix and Spotify to contribute to creating a certain amount of Canadian content.

“Tech giants will have to pay their fair share towards our culture — including towards Indigenous artists and creators,” she said.

Bill C-11 passed third reading in Parliament in June 2022. On April 20, Senate discussed a number of amendments to the bill.

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(24) Comments:

  1. Posted by Parasite on

    “Tech giants will have to pay their fair share towards our culture — including towards Indigenous artists and creators.”

    I really dislike this idea that we should force ‘tech giants’ to pay anything towards our ‘culture’ whatever that is (to be decided by the lucky activists who manage to extort funding from the government, I suppose).

    I sincerely hope Netflix pulls out of Canada before giving in to this.

    I also don’t think the government should be propping up this industry. There are great films being made around the world without the blanket support of governments.

    This model is a broken one where marginally good programing that few watch is foisted on a public who is forced to pay for it.. and for what? To support a class who see an easy and steady paycheck by exploiting government.

    “It’s ‘unfathomable’ that the government doesn’t underwrite my dream to be a film maker”

    Absurd

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    • Posted by Activist isn’t a dirty word on

      Never thought I’d see the day where activist gets used like it’s a dirty word, but here we are in 2023 and it gets used a pejorative on NN daily. Y’all must hate free speech.

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      • Posted by Parasite on

        To parse your comment, you say the use of ‘activist’ as a pejorative indicates a hatred for free speech.” I say this is a text book example of a non-sequitur (simply put: it does not follow).

        So there it is, another problem we see on NN, the constant flood of logical fallacies and cognitive distortion. Exhausting, I agree…

        I’ll grant you that activist needn’t be a ‘dirty’ word though. Neither does the statement above explicitly say this.

        The main point is someone will be funded to decide and project into the world their vision of what culture actually is. That person or group of persons will be given a distinct advantage and privilege (arguably, hegemony) in determining what for many will come to count as cultural reality.

        We are right to be cautious and draw that into question. Wouldn’t you agree?

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        • Posted by Thesaurus Rex on

          Pretentious much?

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          • Posted by So Weak on

            Sorry you are ignorant. But that’s on you.

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            • Posted by Being utterly verbose on

              Does not make you strong

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              • Posted by That’s true…. on

                And yet personal attacks show that you are weak.

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    • Posted by Valentina Teresch on

      In Canada virtually every film and television series is publicly subsidized, either directly through grants and contributions or indirectly through tax rebates and other incentive programs. We are a tiny market immediately adjacent to the largest market in the world, and without substantial federal, municipal, territorial/provincial and foundation support for the last few decades, we would not have a film or broadcasting industry. That may or may not matter to you; if you think public support for Arts is a bad thing, then I urge you to vote for Pierre Poilievre, who will do whatever he can to kill arts funding.

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  2. Posted by Oh? on

    “adding it was critical in supporting the launch of Uvagut TV.”

    You mean the channel that airs a Screensaver of a qulliq 18 hours a day and 1990’s reruns of igloolik film projects?

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    • Posted by volunteer on

      ..Uvagut just promotes Igloolikmiut and Arviat. It’s a private TV channel for the same small group of Inuit since Isuma started years back.

  3. Posted by Other on

    Some of us like to be exposed to films and movies that are not produced by the giants of the industry. There are real gems among them. And they are a way to promote freedom of expression. I am supportive of my tax $ going toward that. Obviously, there need to be limits to how much public funds are spent on anything. But public funds are meant to support our society. The way it has been interpreted in our western democratic societies, this means more than roads, it also means health, art to some extent and economic safety nets. The market does not do all of that.

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    • Posted by Truestory on

      Wasting my tax dollars.

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      • Posted by ‘Truestory’? Not really on

        “Nunavut’s film industry contributes to the territory’s economy: for every dollar of film production Nunavut Film funds, the actual amount spent in the territory is five dollars. “That’s a huge impact,” he said.”
        *
        Seems like putting any taxpayer money towards film projects in Nunavut are good for the economy, and good for our culture… that’s actually a really good return on such a little investment so far, it seems like further funds should be spent in this manner as it’s good for the local economy beyond simply the production of movies/TV, which also has its less-measurable value.

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  4. Posted by Art Thompson on

    Nunavut and this offshoot is just one big funding model to support the ongoing cultural importance or lack thereof of a 3rd world community of nothing.

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    • Posted by 867 on

      Bit harsh but not wrong

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  5. Posted by funny on

    everything is colonialist or systemic racism until you need a handout and help from those in gov’t

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    • Posted by Colonial Clown Car on

      Definitely funny.. and the arguments for the funding will eventually become abstract arguments that it is needed to combat those same things.

      Anytime you see the phrase “permanent funding” know that someone is looking for a more stable career. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but its a factor worth weighing.

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      • Posted by Valentina Teresch on

        Actually, the call for “stable” funding is a recognition that a sustainable institution or industry cannot be built on the basis of a pilot program or an annual funding window.

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        • Posted by Let’s play make believe on

          If the viability of your industry depends on a steady stream of government “funding” is it really an industry at all?

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          • Posted by Valentina Teresch on

            You are of course at liberty to use any definition of the term “Industry” you wish. My point stands, regardless of your preferred terminology. The print, film, broadcasting, theatre and cultural industries in this country exist by virtue of public funding, an unavoidable consequence of our proximity to the world’s largest producer of cultural products.

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            • Posted by Let’s play make believe on

              What are the reasonable limits to government funding for the arts for you? The question here is not as black and white as all funding good, or all funding bad.

              I’m opposed to blanket funding because in my opinion it does not encourage the production of good art, nor is that its primary goal. its intent is to provide security for what will inevitably become a privileged class whose true skill will become the ability to extract / manipulate those funding sources based on whatever very limited parameters the ‘government’ choses.

              Why are we arguing to give government that kind of discretionary power at all?? What makes ‘government more well placed than citizens are to determine what counts as ‘good art’ or, what should be and should not be funded?

              Let the public decide what kind of art is choses to support, rather than placing that power in the hands of bureaucrats.

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              • Posted by Valentina Teresch on

                “What are the reasonable limits to government funding for the arts for you?”
                The question as asked is too broad and too vague to answer.
                Your second paragraph is an ideological statement setting out a cynical view of funding for the arts that I don’t share. Bearing in mind that we’re talking about the film (and presumably the broadcast) industry here, the need is a bit different from those of a painter in a garret. Production requires a huge up front investment that precedes the conception of any specific project. It assumes an educational system that provides education/training to both creative and technical personnel for entry level positions; it assumes capital for investment in projects that will yield NO return until their creation; it assumes the existence of distribution and marketing systems; and it assumes venues for screening/transmission with money to acquire the product.
                In Canada those resources do not exist without long term public investment. You seem to be suggesting that unless the industry is self-sufficient and profitable, it shouldn’t exist. I disagree.

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                • Posted by Let’s play make believe on

                  My point is not that an industry that is not self-sufficient nor profitable should not exist, but it should not be underwritten by the public purse, that is, people who have no choice but to pay for it. What are the mechanisms in this model for determining what is and what is not of value?

                  If philanthropists and private donors, (like yourself?), want to support it (and they will) then you should. This is not to say government should have no role, but it’s role should be limited.

                  I find it very interesting (perhaps telling?) that you have evaded the question of reasonable limits, pretending it is “too broad” to answer. Funny.

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                  • Posted by Valentina Teresch on

                    “Value” is what people are willing to pay for, directly as consumers indirectly as taxpayers. As a Canadian, I pay for multiple programs and services that I will never use and that in some cases I don’t support. If I object to them strongly enough, I use the channels available to me as a citizen to seek their revision or elimination, including my vote and my participation in various advocacy groups or initiatives.
                    The role of government IS limited.
                    I characterized your question on reasonable limits as “too broad” because it was. There are hundreds of factors that determine the “limits” to grant and contribution programs. Perhaps you could reformulate it so that’s it’s actually answerable?

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