Isuma closes Igloolik office after Nunavut Film rejects funding proposal

SARA MINOGUE

The co-founder of Igloolik Isuma Productions – makers of Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner – says that contradictions in the government of Nunavut’s film policy are to blame for the indefinite closure of their Igloolik office.

Isuma had applied for, and expected to receive, a labour rebate and youth training funding from Nunavut Film. Instead, both applications were rejected, and the money Isuma had planned to use as an operating budget until their next project never materialized.

“We knew the money was there, and we knew there weren’t other film companies in Nunavut who would claim all of it, so of course we operated all year based on the assumption that we would get somewhere between $150,000 and $200,000 from Nunavut Film,” Norman Cohn said on Monday.

A clause in the film policy guidelines says films that have received money specific to a film project are not eligible to apply for other funding. Isuma’s latest project, The Journals of Knud Rasmussen had already received $200,000 in project funding in 2003-04, which, according to Nunavut Film’s director Sheila Pokiak, made their latest production ineligible for labour rebates.

Nunavut’s labour rebate policy promises filmmakers 50 cents for every dollar they spend on wages. Isuma had applied for $175,000 in rebates. They had also applied for $18,000 in youth training funds.

Once alerted to the problem, Nunavut Film offered a quick fix – to top up the previous project funding by an additional $155,000.

Cohn, however, says that won’t work as Knud Rasmussen’s budget is already closed, and altering it would jeopardize several million dollars in funding from other sources.

“They want to give us money but they want to give us money for a train that’s already left the station,” Cohn said.

Pokiak, who became Nunavut Film’s first director four months ago, says she’s in the process of recommending changes to the policy developed by the department of economic development and transportation in August 2003, but that any changes require cabinet approval as well as input from Nunavut filmmakers.

“It can’t happen overnight,” Pokiak said.

Cohn is most upset about losing the labour rebate, which he says is “the lynchpin” of every province’s film financing strategy.

Until recently, Isuma’s latest production employed 100 people, all of whom were paid through project-specific funding. When the labour rebate was denied, five more full-time employees were laid off: Paul Quassa, Lucy Tulugarjuk, Natar Ungalaaq, Micheline Ammaq and Sheba Awa.

Director Zach Kunuk remains on the payroll under Knud Rasmussen’s production budget.

Isuma still has four people working out of its Montreal office.

“In the professional film industry, you spend the money where you get the money,” Cohn said. “If Nunavut doesn’t have any money for us, we can’t spend it in Nunavut.

“We can have people in Quebec or Montreal or Denmark but not in Nunavut.”

Reuben Murphy, the director of economic development and innovation for the GN referred all questions on the policy to Nunavut Film.