Subject: IsumaTV Press Release : Countdown to Copenhagen
From: nanauq@isuma.tv
Date: Wed, May 20, 2009 23:46
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For immediate release
Montréal, May 20th 2009 – Zacharias Kunuk and IsumaTV
announce the launch of Countdown to Copenhagen May 29, 2009 with a
two-hour Live Webcast featuring , Inuit climate activist and 2007
Nobel Peace Prize nominee, speaking on Inuit, Human Rights and
Climate Change live from Iqaluit, Nunavut to a worldwide audience.
The program leads off at 7:45 pm EST with the World Premiere of
Tungijuq, Isuma's new 6-minute video starring Inuit jazz and
throat-singing sensation, Tanya Tagaq.
At 8 pm Siila Watt-Cloutier delivers the 9th annual
LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture, sponsored by the Institute of Canadian
Citizenship and the Dominion Institute, introduced by John Ralston
Saul, The Right Honorable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada,
Isuma's Zacharias Kunuk and The Honourable Ann Meekitjuk Hanson,
Commissioner of Nunavut.
Igloolik Isuma Productions is creator of the award-winning Fast
Runner Trilogy including Atanarjuat The Fast Runner, The Journals of
Knud Rasmussen and Before Tomorrow. IsumaTV is Isuma's free
interactive website of Inuit and Aboriginal multimedia content with
over 1000 films in 28 Indigenous languages.
Countdown to Copenhagen is Isuma's six-month internet campaign to
promote the importance of Inuit knowledge and human rights in the
global discussion of Climate Change. Monthly webcasts on IsumaTV from
May to November will culminate in Live From the Floe Edge,ten days of
daily internet streaming hosted by Zacharias Kunuk live from his
arctic wilderness hunting camp during the UN Climate Change
Conference in Copenhagen, December 7-17.
IsumaTV pioneers a low-cost model for internet distribution of
Indigenous media for community organizing on issues of global
importance. Throughout 2009 Countdown to Copenhagen Live Webcasts
will be downloaded to a growing network of digital screening rooms
from Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal to as far as Tromso, Norway and
Alice Springs, Australia. IsumaTV has the goal by December 2009 of a
network of 1000 local-to-global screening groups around the world
watching Live From the Floe Edge through digital
download-to-projection.
May 29th also kicks off NITV on IsumaTV to install local servers in
remote Inuit and Aboriginal communities allowing IsumaTV to be viewed
at high-speed even with poor internet service. NITV on IsumaTV
installs its first local server this month in the Umimmak School in
the tiny Nunavut community of Grise Fiord, pop. 141, delivering 1000
films at high-speed to Canada's northernmost community at 76 degrees
N latitude.
IsumaTV was created in January 2008 by Igloolik Isuma Productions in
association with Nunavut Independent TV Network (NITV), imagineNATIVE
Film+Media Arts Festival, Vtape, Native Communications Society of the
NWT and other non-profit agencies. In its first fifteen months
IsumaTV had 7.5 million hits from over 40 countries. IsumaTV thanks
Telefilm Canada New Media Fund, Canadian Heritage Canadian Culture
Online, Canada Council, Nunavut Film Development Corporation,
Government of Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders and
Youth and Atuqtuarvik Corporation.
The LaFontaine Baldwin Lecture, founded by John Ralston Saul in 2000,
is one of the most prominent lecture series on issues concerning the
public good in Canada. For the first time in its history, the
LaFontaine Baldwin Lecture will be held in Canada's North. Many
conversations take place in Canada about the North, regarding its
environment, sovereignty, and natural resources. Usually these
conversations are held in the South and often without any input from
Northerners.
Siila Watt-Cloutier, one of Canada's leading public figures, has long
been a national and international voice for Northerners and the North.
Siila Watt-Cloutier is an Officer of the Order of Canada, the first
recipient of Canada's Northern Medal and was nominated for the 2007
Nobel Peace Prize. Between 1995 and 1998 she was elected President of
the Inuit Circumpolar Council. Between 2002 and 2006 she served as the
elected International Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council. Siila
Watt-Cloutier has worked on a range of social and environmental
issues affecting the Inuit, and has most recently focused on
persistent organic pollutants and global climate change.
Tanya Tagaq Gillis (BFA) is an Inuit throat singer from Cambridge Bay
(Ikaluktuutiak), Nunavut, Canada, on the south coast of Victoria
Island. A popular performer at Canadian folk festivals, she is best
known for collaborations with Björk, including concert tours and the
2004 album Medúlla, and with the Kronos Quartet. In 2005, her CD
Sinaa (Inuktitut for "edge") won three Canadian Aboriginal Music
Awards including Best Female Artist. Sinaa was nominated for the 2006
Juno Awards as Best Aboriginal Recording. Tagaq's most recent album is
Auk/Blood.
Zacharias Kunuk is president and co-founder of Igloolik Isuma
Productions, created in 1987 as Canada's first Inuit-language
independent production company. Kunuk's first feature film,
Atanarjuat The Fast Runner, won the Camera d'or at the 2001 Cannes
Film Festival and was distributed around the world. Kunuk is an
Officer of the Order of Canada and was the Toronto Globe and Mail's
2002 Man of the Year in the Arts.
http://www.isuma.tv
+ http://www.isuma.ca
http://www.icc-icc.ca/en/symposium/index.php
http://www.myspace.com/tagaq
and http://www.tanyatagaq.com
Source : Zacharias Kunuk : (867) 934-8809 : zkunuk@isuma.ca
Information : Norman Cohn :
(514) 576-0707 :
cohn@isuma.ca
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