Kingulliit The Next Generation - TV

Kingulliit: The Next Generation (Part 1)

Unikkaat Sivunittinnit: Messages from the Past

In 1992, Igloolik Isuma Productions produced a documentary film about traditional Inuit ajaja songs.

Produced by Norman Cohn and Zacharias Kunuk when they were just starting their independent film company, Kunuk searched to better understand ajaja songs: where did the songs come from, how where they made and how have they been passed down generation to generation.

Each elder remembers their own family’s ajaja songs and explains how they were created by poets taking their words from their life experiences. The process also allowed Kunuk to collect traditional music  to publish a full album on CD and to use many of these tradition ajaja songs in his films over the next twenty years.

Listen free to a selection of these songs here

Order the full CD of Unikaat Sivunittinnit (Messages from the Past) contact VTape

Kingulliit: The Next Generation (Part 2)

Pingajugijat Kinguvaarijat: The Third Generation

Part 2 of the Kingulliit documentary, by Zacharias Kunuk and Paul Aarulaaq Quassa.

In the 1980’s and 90’s, as aging elders and Third Generation children become modern adults, southern radio and television introduced in 1982 increase the impact of foreign language and culture, and quickly alter the community dynamics of the settlement. Traditional respect for leadership by elders is undermined as Third Generation adults are prematurely empowered by new skills: the ability to speak, read and write English; to negotiate with white bosses and bureaucracies; to get jobs using new technology like trucks, heavy equipment, cash registers, typewriters, fax machines and computers.
 

Kingulliit: The Next Generation (Part 3)

Maannalisat Kinguvaarijat: Today's Generation

Part 3 of the Kingulliit documentary, by Zacharias Kunuk and Paul Aarulaaq Quassa.

Focusing on the emerging youth of today, the ‘fourth’ generation never lived on the land, have little or no traditional knowledge, speak both Inuktitut and English poorly and have few positive models or prospects in either the traditional life of their ancestors or the world of the whites. Youth can be lost, unemployed, angry, with nothing to do.