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Paper short abstract

The Canadian Inuit have countered threats to their language and culture by developing their own radio and television programmes e.g. the government-run IBC (Inuit Broadcasting Corporation). This led to a boom in independent films. Others films directly attack the colonial condition.

Paper long abstract

The Canadian Inuit have countered threats to their language and culture - due to massive assimilation by Canadian bureaucratic, educational and economic systems, and via the media by North American popular culture - by developing their own radio and television programmes e.g. the government-run IBC (Inuit Broadcasting Corporation).

This led to a boom in independent films by Isuma Productions (Igloolik) showing their mythology Atarnarjuat/the Fast Runner, their recent history The Journals of Knud Rasmussen and demonstrating traditional skills, e.g. Kamik [making skin boots]; Saputi [fishing at the weir].

Others films directly attack the colonial condition: Starting Fire with Gunpowder [Inuit taking control of TV], Kakalakuvik 2009 [boarding schools] and Ullumi 2008 [Inuit world view today]. Qallunaanik Piusiqsiuriniq [Why Whitemen are Funny] (2006) presents the Inuit as anthropologists studying white people, running tests on specimens [including Graburn] brought back from the South, and presenting papers on their research at a conference!