National Aboriginal
Achievement Awards
COVER:
Thomas
Prince
Canada's
Forgotten Aboriginal War Hero
NATIONAL ABORIGINAL
ACHIEVMENT AWARDS:
Dr. Freda Ahenakew
Mariano Aupilardjuk
Roman
Bittman
Dr Harold Cardinal
Dr. Lindsay Crowshoe
Tomson Highway
Fred House
Zacharias Kunuk
Richard Nerysoo
Lance Relland
Nicholas Sibbeston
Mary Thomas
Dolly Watts
BUSINESS:
Bankers Call Shots
A bank is calling the
financial shots on one of Manitoba's largest First Nations
CULTURE:
Debate
Rages Over Native Alcoholism
Gwishalaayt
The Spirit
Wraps Around You
EDUCATION:
Agreement Solidifies Ties Between Valley Schools and First Nations
Education Critical to Moving Forward
Education is Failing Aboriginal Students
MODERN TREATIES:
Atlantic
Chiefs Demand Action on Template Agreements
...the
Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nation Chiefs are demanding a meeting
with DFO minister Herb Dhaliwa...
Cash-strapped Tribal Police Winding Down Operations
First Nations communities
in Cape Breton will no longer be policed by their own...
HUMOUR:
Support Your Local Native
OBITUARY:
Chief Simon Baker
POLITICS:
One
Dead Indian
Referendum
Circus Coming Soon to Your Town
20,000 Survivors of Residential Schools to Seek Compensation
Zacharias
Kunuk
Media and Communications
The
sky is the limit. These are the words Inuit filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk
uses when asked what advice he has for Aboriginal youth. He speaks with
authority.
Now only 43, Kunuk is the co-founder of Isuma Productions, the first Inuit
independent film production company in Canada. Now the inhabitants of
the forbidding Arctic, the Inuit, can turn on their televisions and see
productions that truly reflect who and what they are.
Through subtitles, the peoples of southern Canada and the world at large
can now join with them and view the Inuit world through the prism that
is Kunuk's camera. In 1981, he brought the Arctic's first video portapack
home with him to Igloolik, a remote community of 900 which had twice refused
southern television, fearing for their culture.
He never looked back.
Soon, he confronted the non-Aboriginal production power-brokers - the
CBC, Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board - over the rights of
Inuit to make films in an Inuit voice and from their own perspective.
Appropriately his first film was entitled "From an Inuit Point of View".
Kunuk has just released Atanaijuat (The Fast Runner), a $2 million historic
thriller based on an ancient Inuit legend.
He has also produced a television series called Ammiturmiut, which won
the Best Series Award for the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation four years
running. His films have been screened from Tokyo to Copenhagen and New
York to Madrid. Though he's been honoured around the world, Kunuk still
fixes his own snowmobile at home in Igloolik, hunts seals at breathing
holes, and remains true to an ancient past.