Co-Producer – Co-Director
MARY KUNUK is a founding member of Arnait Video Productions. Artist, print-maker and video maker, Mary Kunuk received North West Territories Arts Council and Canada Council grants to produce several experimental videos using computer animation. These have been shown in festivals and galleries around the world. Kunuk is co-producer/director of Ningiura, Arnait's first Telefilm-financed drama based on authentic oral histories, traditional knowledge and contemporary reality of Igloolik today.
Co-Producer – Co-Director - Director of Photography – Curator (Museums)
MARIE-HELENE COUSINEAU formed the collective Arnait Ikajurtigiit (Women's Video Workshop), and is its coordinator/trainer as well as an active collaborating producer. Cousineau has written about the experiences of women making video in Igloolik and curated several exhibitions of this work. She has received several Canada Council and Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec video production grants. Her video work has been widely exhibited in Canada, the U.S and Europe. With an MFA in Communications from University of Iowa, Cousineau was also associate professor of Communications at Concordia University in Montreal (1997-1999). She is co-directing Before Tomorrow, the first Arnait feature-length film, with Madeline Ivalu.
Cultural Advisor – Actor - Writer – Musician – Storyteller - Director
MADELINE IVALU has been a key elder participant in all the productions by the AVP since 1991. She was cultural advisor and interviewer for
Women/Health/Body and
Itivimiut as well as storyteller, musician, actor and writer for
Qulliq,
Attagutaaluk Starvation,
Piujuq and Angutautuq and
Unikausiq. She presented the videos of the Workshop at Qaigit 1996 in Ottawa and in Montreal as well as Ottawa in 1997. She was part of the Pan Arctic Women Artists Workshop and is president of Naluat in Igloolik, a women's sewing collective. She represents Igloolik women to Paukktutit, the Pan-Canadian Inuit Women's organization. She is co-directing Arnait first feature-length film
Before Tomorrow and is the lead actress in the film.
Writer – Actor - Musician
SUSAN AVINGAQ has been a regular participant in the Video Workshop since 1991. She was a key member of the production team for
Qulliq,
Attagutaaluk Starvation and
Piujuq and Angutautuq as writer, actor and musician. A renowned seamstress/artist in the Baffin region she is also active locally in teaching sewing traditions to younger Inuit women. Susan was born on the land and moved into town in Igloolik in the mid-1970's, although her family still hunts and camps on the land part of the year. In October 1997, Susan received a travel grant from Canada Council to come to Montreal to present a compilation of Arnait works, Taravut/Our Reflections, at the Maison de la Culture Cote-des-Neiges and the Ottawa School of Art. She participated in the Pan Arctic Women Artists Workshop organized by the Inuit Art Foundation in 1997. She is the Art Director for
Before Tomorrow.
Cultural Advisor - Actor
RACHEL UYURASUK is an elder who participates in many of our projects. She was involved in the first video we ever produced:
Women's Way (1991). In the summer of 1999, at age 85, she played a major role in our production
Ningiura. A former midwife, poet and singer, she is a respected Elder throughout Nunavut.
Cameraperson – Editor – Co-Director
CAROL KUNUK assisted in the direction of Arnait’s latest production, Before Tomorrow. She has also worked as a television producer for the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation and for the Nunavut Independent Television Network. She is the local coordinator of Arnait Video Productions in Igloolik.
Costume Designer – Cultural Advisor – Script Consultant – Actor
ATUAT AKKITIRQ was nominated for a Genie Award in the Best Costume Category for
The Journals of Knud Rasmussen in 2007. She was also a supporting actress in this film. Beginning her career with Igloolik Isuma Productions in 1990, she starred in the lead role of the family elder for the internationally acclaimed 13-episode
Nunavut (Our Land) Series. At Igloolik Isuma Productions, she has worked as an actress, script consultant and cultural advisor as well as a supporting actress and costume designer for
Atarnajuat – The Fast Runner. In 1991, she begun working with Arnait Video Productions as a script consultant and cultural advisor and is the Costume Designer on Arnait’s first feature-length film
Before Tomorrow.
Set Photographer – Web Designer
OANA SPINU Before joining Igloolik Isuma Productions and AVP, Oana was the Production Department Coordinator at CKUT FM, New Media associate at Banff Centre for the Arts, Technical Director of Studio XX, as well as a a researcher on Territoires ouverts/Open Territories at the SAT. She has worked with Igloolik Isuma Productions and Arnait for several years on interactive projects such as
nunatinnit.org,
sila.nu and
nitv.nu. She has been involved in promoting free software, streaming technologies, media literacy and activism, and community radio in Canada and abroad.
