Qimmit – the mysterious disappearance of the Inuit’s sled dogs

Joelie Sanguya's dog team

Last Friday night, Ole Gjerstad‘s and Joelie Sanguya‘s film Qimmit: A Clash of Two Truths premiered at the Cinéma Parallèle as part of the Présence autochtone aboriginal film festival.

Co-produced by Piksuk Media Inc. and the National Film Board of Canada, the film won the Rigoberta Menchu Second Prize at the 20th First Peoples’ Festival Awards.

Qimmit (“many dogs”) is the story of the seemingly mysterious disappearance of the dog teams in the Inuit communities of the Canadian north in the ’50s and ’60s, shortly after the Inuit were moved off the land and into communities. The film, sets out to tell the story of “one shock, two truths” as the Inuit and the ‘white’ authorities totally disagree on what happened.

Shot during a Quebec inquiry (for Nunavik, the Quebec Arctic territory) and a “truth commission” for Nunavut (the rest of the Eastern Canadian Arctic) the film is full of emotionally wrenching testimony. For the Inuit, there is no doubt that the authorities, and specifically the police, exterminated the dogs in order to force the aboriginal people to become sedentary.

The former constables interviewed for the film denounce these views as lies and fabrication. But the Inuit testimony is very convincing, and the filmmakers wisely see this whole story as an expression of a colonial power relationship. The film is very well made with some stylish and evocative but restrained re-enactments.

Ole Gjerstad and Joelie Sanguaya in Canadian North
Ole Gjerstad with Joelie Sanguya on the set of their film ‘Qimmit: A Clash of Two Truths'

I put a few questions to Ole Gjerstad, who also happens to be one of my best friends.

What was the greatest difficulty making this film?

To convey to an audience in 2010 the colonial reality of the Canadian Arctic forty to fifty years ago. White authority simply took it for granted that they knew what was best for Inuit; Inuit were too intimidated by white authority — as embodied by any white person in their communities — to protest or resist. Things have changed dramatically, but if we cannot get the minds of the audience back to those days it will be very difficult for them to understand how something like this could happen.

“One shock, two truths…” but in the end the Inuit version is so much more believable, partly because it’s emotional first-person testimony. How to explain that the ex-RCMP have blocked this out?

The RCMP produced an internal review, which was conducted much like a police investigation, looking for “proof” and pretty much excluding the context. Add to that the many controversies and scandals that have plagued the RCMP in recent years, and I believe that the top RCMP brass decided the Inuit claims weren’t of much consequence. As for the Sûreté du Quebec, which was responsible for the killing of thousands of dogs after they assumed control of Nunavik in 1961, they simply ignored our requests, as did the Quebec government, saying they didn’t want to discuss the matter until they heard from the Inuit about settling the claims.

I wondered when you say the dogs are back in the lives of the Inuit helping to reconnect with their traditions – it is of course a great thing to say at the end of a film, but is it a reality in many communities?

There are dog teams now in nearly all the communities in Nunavut and Nunavik. They’re used by Inuit outfitters for tourism, for trophy hunting by foreigners, by others for teaching traditional skills to young Inuit, and simply for pleasure. Nobody depends on the dogs to survive, but their return to the communities have established a visible link to a tradition that was at the heart of Inuit life not so long ago.

Last month we filmed a ten-day traditional sled dog race, the Nunavut Quest, for a television series. The enthusiasm and level of interest in all the communities involved leaves me in no doubt that the dogs are like a weapon in Inuit hands to fight against cultural obliteration.

Thanks to Tobi Elliott for her help with this blog.

The Socalled Movie

Socalled and The Socalled Movie
Socalled performed following the Montreal premiere. Photo by Emilie Nguyen Ngoc.

I went to see Garry Beitel’s film The Socalled Movie when it premiered in Montreal a few days ago. A terrific evening: great film, great audience, all very Montreal. The post-screening Q & A was followed by a concert by the film’s main character, musician Socalled (aka Josh Dolgin) with his band.

Socalled is a truly original creator of hard-to-classify music which (to borrow a few lines from the press release) mashes up funk and hip-hop with Jewish klezmer. “Socalled is a pianist, singer, arranger, rapper, producer and composer – and also a magician, filmmaker and visual artist – a creative force who blasts through the boundaries that separate music of different cultures, eras and generations.”

Josh is funny, creative, touching, and unstoppable. Garry Beitel sees the star of his film as having “an amazing ability to take great music from the past and plug it into the current moment.”

Socalled Movie - NFB still

The Socalled Movie is structured in neat little chapters, inspired by François Girard’s Thirty-two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993). In spite of this, the film has real unity and a dramatic arc that really works. During the Q&A, Garry said he felt this approach was appropriate because the main character is such a multi-talented chameleon: “Just when you think you’ve figured out who he is, you discover another dimension which challenges your perception.”

Seeing Garry’s film, I had a sense of a filmmaker having reached real maturity. Everything about the film breathes experience and long-standing collaborative relationships – notably with DOP Marc Gadoury and editor Dominique Sicotte, who both did fantastic work.

The film was produced by Barry Lazar (reFrame Films) and Ravida Din (The National Film Board of Canada.)

The Socalled Movie begins its cross-Canada theatrical run June 4 – 11 here in Montreal @ Cinéma du Parc (3575 Ave. Du Parc), and June 5 – 8 & 10 @ CinemaSpace, Segal Centre (5170 Cote-Ste-Catherine).

It opens in Quebec City June 4 @ Le Clap (2360 chemin Sainte-Foy) and plays New York City’s NewFest June 08 @ JCC in Manhattan (334 Amsterdam Avenue.)

Other release dates on the film’s blog here.

Thanks to Tobi Elliott for help with this post.

The multi-platform revolution

Prison Valley webdocumentary (screengrab)

This is a still taken from an excellent interactive web documentary, Prison Valley by David Dufresne & Philippe Brault, produced by arte.tv and upian.com, in partnership with FranceInter, Libération.fr and Yahoo.com.

The world of documentary production is in the midst of an upheaval, the likes of which have not been seen since the coming of cinema vérité/direct cinema in the first years of the sixties.

Digital technology and the Web 2.0 has meant that virtually anyone can be a content producer – or filmmaker – and that the user can express opinions and interact with other producers. We are no longer limited to watching programs on TV at predetermined times – and with commercial breaks.

There is no longer “an audience,” there are audiences. What used to be small niche audiences on a given territory can now be a substantial global audience. It is a revolution, and as all revolutions it comes with pain and loss as well as increased freedom.

We are experiencing this transition in quite a radical way in Canada right now, because government agencies such as the National Film Board and the new Canadian Media Fund have decided to invest heavily in multi-platform production.

Some filmmakers are focusing on the negative consequences. I think this is a mistake, because multi-platform production opens the door to new ways of reaching and audience, and new ways of telling stories. I don’t see these as replacing the traditional ‘linear’ stories but rather, complementing them.

But even this means a substantial change in the way we work.

More on this another day, as I will review several of these multi-platform projects and interview their authors.

Thanks to Tobi Elliot for help with this post.