Jobie Weetaluktuk is a filmmaker, writer and editor from Inukjuak, Nunavik, QC. He works primarily in documentary film and also produces short experimental works, maintaining a diverse artistic practice. Weetaluktuk's films focus on Inuit culture and heritage and often address the tangled effects of colonialism.
Weetaluktuk started studying radio and journalism in Ottawa, ON before working in film and television for the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) in Iqaluit, NU. Weetaluktuk’s work in film eventually led to Qallunajatut: Urban Inuk (2005), a documentary that follows the lives of three Inuit who have left the Arctic to live in Montreal [1]. The film was met with critical acclaim and was screened at over twenty venues internationally. In 2006, Qallunajatut: Urban Inuk was awarded the Rigoberta Menchu Grand Prize at Montreal’s First Peoples Festival [2].
Weetaluktuk’s second documentary Umiaq Skin Boat (2008) followed the construction of an umiaq in his home community Inukjuak [3]. The films world premiere was at Toronto's Hot Docs Film Festival. Umiaq Skin Boat (2008) was recognized with the Material Culture and Archaeology Prize at the 11th Royal Anthropological Institute International Festival of Ethnographic Film in Leeds, UK [4]. His experimental documentary short InukShop (2009) was produced as a part of the Digital Nation Project, a selection of 13 film shorts produced by APTN in collaboration with the National Film Board for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver [5]. The film mixes archival footage of traditional activities in Inuit communities with new footage of the ways Inuit culture is depicted and commodified for a Southern audience. Weetaluktuk's most recent film Timuti (2012) weaves together an intergenerational story around the passing on of the name Timuti.
In 2011, Weetaluktuk attended a Truth and Reconciliation Council (TRC) hearing in Inukjuak and discussed his experiences in the residential school system [6]. His film Kakkalaakkuvik: Where the Children Dwell (2009) was later screened at a TRC event held in Montreal in 2013 [7]. In addition to filmmaking, Weetaluktuk co-edited the book The World of Tivi Etok: The Life and Art of an Inuit Elder (2008) and has narrated scripts in Inuktitut for IMAX, the BBC, and for the Montreal Symphony Orchestra’s collaborative performance Tusarnituuq! Nagano in the Land of the Inuit (2008).
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Accomplishments
2014: Timuti (2012) won Best Aboriginal Award at the Yorkton Film Festival.
2013: World Premiere of Timuti (2012) at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.
2009: InukShop (2009) awarded Honourable Mention for Best Experimental Film at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.
2009: InukShop (2009) was produced as part of the Digital Nation Project for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
2009: Umiaq Skin Boat (2008) was awarded the Material Culture and Archaeology Prize at the 11th Royal Anthropological Institute International Festival of Ethnographic Film.
2009: Co-edited The World of Tivi Etok: The Life and Art of an Inuit Elder (2008).
2009: World Premiere of Kakalakkuvik (Where the Children Dwell) (2009) at Rencontres internationales du documentaire.
2008: Umiaq Skin Boat (2008) was selected as the Closing Film at the Montreal First Peoples' Festival.
2008: At its World Premiere, Umiaq Skin Boat (2008) was chosen as the Selected Feature at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.
2005: Qallunajatut (Urban Inuk) (2005) aired on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.