Ethan Tassiuk

Ethan Tassiuk is an emerging filmmaker from Arviat, NU, who graduated from John Arnalukjuak High School in 2017. Tassiuk does many jobs behind the camera, including casting, filming and production editing.

Tassiuk has been involved in film since the age of twelve, when he attended his first meeting of the Arviat Film Society [1], where he still works today. He frequently uses his camera to advocate for the health of his community. His anti-bullying videos garnered widespread attention, so much so that “Uncle Bob” Carveth, an eccentric Australian philanthropist, donated a camera to Tassiuk in 2014 after seeing one [2]. Tassiuk attented an Arviat Youth Art and Film Group in the summer of 2015, which culminated in a safe-sex PSA-style video in which he starred [3].

He earned a gold medal for Video Production at the Nunavut Territorial Skills Competition in 2017, and competed at the National Skills competition as part of Team Nunavut [4]. An interview with Tassiuk, discussing the importance of hope in child development, was featured in TIME Magazine’s The Science of Our Childhood in September 2017.

Later that year, Tassiuk co-authored a paper which was presented at the Pathways to Resilience international summit in South Africa [5]. He travelled to Venice, Italy, in 2019 to witness Isuma’s presence at the Canada Pavilion during the Venice Biennale. Tassiuk is hoping to work with the Arviat Film Society on an Isuma collaboration about Inuit legends in the future [6].