Three major broadcasting giants, Netflix Canada, Canada Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) and Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) have teamed up to commission a new untitled comedy series, created and written by two indigenous Inuit women and filmed in their hometown of Arctic Nunavut.
Stacey Aglok, an Inuit filmmaker and producer, first collaborated with fellow Inuit filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril in 2019 to develop Red Marrow Media, and now, with funding from the three big networks and their local Nunavut film broadcaster, they can finally create a show in their hometown - a comedy breaking generational curses with humour at the helm.
“Alethea and I have both been in the film industry, me for 15 years, Alethea going on 20," Aglok says. "When we came together three years ago, we really wanted to do something that was that felt real to us and tackled a lot of real things in our world and our culture and our lives,” she says.
“But we wanted to do it through humour, which is so important to our culture and our traditions. We laugh about everything. Someone trips, we laugh, and then ask if they're okay. Protocol, cultural protocol.”
Helping Nunavut economy
“We really wanted to be able to make this show at home with our people, so that we could not only have it feel real and beautiful and authentic but also be able to contribute to our territory's economy and more opportunities for training, both behind the camera and in front of the camera," Aglok says.
The comedy is a story of friendship, family and community, she says.
“An elder who's been a little bit Christianised and the conflict that sometimes these colonial spiritualities have conflict that they present with the younger Inuit who are trying to decolonise and reclaim older traditions and customs and feel that pride in who we are as Inuit.”
Both Stacey and Alethea have many years of experience under their belt producing feature films and now they plan to train the next generation of filmmakers.
“By season two, we'll be able to level them up so that they can keep on getting more skills and be able to not just work with us but anywhere on any production that they want to.”