{"id":16244,"date":"2023-07-04T15:39:33","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T19:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/?post_type=taqralikonline&p=16244"},"modified":"2023-07-04T15:39:36","modified_gmt":"2023-07-04T19:39:36","slug":"aupaluk-project-more-than-just-a-film","status":"publish","type":"taqralikonline","link":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/article\/aupaluk-project-more-than-just-a-film\/","title":{"rendered":"AUPALUK PROJECT MORE THAN JUST A FILM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Movie documents life in Nunavik\u2019s smallest community but also raises important political issues<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Miriam Dewar<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Makivvik President Pita Aatami sits on a raised chair in front of a green screen in a hotel near the Makivvik office in Montreal. He is dressed all in black and four filmmakers move around him. There is a sound person wearing headphones and holding a boom mike, as Director Ole Gjerstad stands behind a film camera and counts down from three, two, one\u2026 \u201cand to you, Pita.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This film shoot is possibly the last of a project that has been in the works since a Makivvik board meeting in 2021. Aupaluk: Red Earth, its working title, was conceived at the meeting after board member Maggie Akpahatak requested a film be made in support of residents, documenting life in her community as it faces pressure from mining companies and government. The request was approved and William Tagoona, along with Ole and his colleagues, who William had worked with previously on the 2015 film, So That you Can Stand, Napagunaqullusi, and the \u201cBuilding the Inuit Homeland\u201d series, headed to Aupaluk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The film crew at the waterfall near Aupaluk. \u00a9Alicia Aragutak\/Makivvik<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been great working with that team. We\u2019ve been together since about 2014,\u201d William says. \u201cWe developed really good chemistry amongst ourselves.\u201d Makivvik has been working for years to document Nunavik Inuit history in various ways, creating an archive of sorts for future generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On their first trip to Aupaluk, they visited the Landholding office where five maps hung. The first depicted areas that Aupaluk had wanted in their Category I and II land selections. The fifth map showed what they were granted, only 15 per cent of what they requested. What they wanted most they were refused, and the Category I lands were divided into four tiny pieces. \u201cThey\u2019re scattered,\u201d Ole says, \u201cIt\u2019s like waste.\u201d They decided this was a big part of the story that needed to be told.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Makivvik executive team flew to Aupaluk to observe the filming last fall and were joined by some Inuttitut High School students. \u00a9Alicia Aragutak\/Makivvik<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The second thing they discovered in Aupaluk was that there were different opinions about how to face the existential threat the mining companies were posing. Ole says the initial apprehensions and tensions people had about participating in the film project were eventually let go. The conclusion in the film is that everybody in Aupaluk agrees that the land was stolen, and something must be done. On that everybody agrees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project became not only one of documenting the beauty of the land under threat, but a political story. The film opens with the Akpahatak family fishing on a spring weekend and shows the majesty of the Nunavik landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s people in their relationship with nature, which is almost sacred to them,\u201d Ole explains, \u201cand what can be done to protect it. This film is not pro-mining, it\u2019s not anti-mining, it\u2019s pro-Inuit rights and in the end it\u2019s not only about Aupaluk. It\u2019s about all the communities. What happened to Aupaluk is the extreme case, but to some extent with the land selection, it happened to every community in Nunavik. And it happened to every Indigenous community in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

William agrees. He says the importance of making this documentary goes back to the 1960s when Inuit were discriminated against, whether in schools, or hospitals. They were seen as dispensable, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re working toward fixing what was done wrong in the past, and with what we\u2019re doing in the Aupaluk documentary I think we\u2019re surfacing that. It\u2019s all part of the injustices that were done in the past and Aupaluk is one of them with the land selections.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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William Tagoona speaks with Aupaluk elder, Johnny Akpahattak. \u00a9Alicia Aragutak\/Makivvik<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The injustices regarding land selections were explored in the \u201cBuilding the Inuit Homeland\u201d series, and Ole says that because Nunavik had its land claim negotiated first, other Inuit regions, like Nunavut and Nunatsiavut, were able to see what mistakes were made before negotiating their own agreements decades later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c(Nunavik) paid the price for being the first. That\u2019s basically what it amounts to,\u201d he says. \u201cBut things are being dealt with. What happened in the past, the theft of the land, the ignoring of Indigenous rights and treaties, are gradually being challenged in courts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the film is a portrait of the people of Aupaluk and their relationship to the land, it is also an instrument for Nunavimmiut to pitch their case for recognition of their rights. \u201cI\u2019d say it\u2019s a weapon, when it comes to dealing with the government,\u201d Ole says. The film will be narrated in English (by William), Inuktitut, as well as French. \u201cThis film has to be shown in Quebec. When Makivvik goes to (Premier) Fran\u00e7ois Legault they can say, \u2018Here is the situation, this is what happened, now can we talk about it?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On their last day shooting in Aupaluk last fall, the Makivvik executive team flew into the community to observe. William says it was an important visit because the corporation is part of the solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll see in the documentary where the governments and the industry, when they negotiated the JBNQA, they had absolutely no regard for the Inuit. They just did whatever they wanted to. So, it was very important for the Makivvik executives to go there and go meet with the leadership of the tiniest community in Nunavik and show their support, and it really did a lot for our documentary. And the people of Aupaluk were being listened to by Makivvik, the only real Inuk body in the James Bay Agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Makivvik President Pita Aatami in Aupaluk. \u00a9Alicia Aragutak\/Makivvik<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Back in the Montreal hotel, Pita Aatami has completed 11 takes. Ole will show them to William to decide on which one to use, not only because the clips are in Inuktitut, but to make sure the messaging is correct. More than on previous films he has worked, he says, this one is presenting a scenario and solution close to what Makivvik wants to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, it\u2019s important we get it right. Here, Makivvik, and Pita, is my client.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Movie documents life in Nunavik\u2019s smallest community but also raises important political issues By Miriam Dewar Makivvik President Pita Aatami sits on a raised chair in [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16550,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"taqralik-issues":[425,123],"class_list":["post-16244","taqralikonline","type-taqralikonline","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","taqralik-issues-425","taqralik-issues-spring"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taqralikonline\/16244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taqralikonline"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/taqralikonline"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taqralikonline\/16244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16278,"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taqralikonline\/16244\/revisions\/16278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"taqralik-issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.makivvik.ca\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/taqralik-issues?post=16244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}