Groundbreaking Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq is threatening legal action over a film at this year's Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM).
Titled of the North, the 74-minute film is a mashup of videos of Inuit people, culled together by Quebec director Dominic Gagnon.
It includes clips of hunting, family life, and snowmobiles, but also Inuit appearing drunk, crashing vehicles, and vomiting.
The film has won showings at prestigious European festivals, and even won an award at the Visions du Réel festival in Nyon, Switzerland.
But in Canada, the film is creating an outcry in both aboriginal and non-aboriginal groups — and in a series of tweets, Tagaq says it not only misrepresents her people, but it uses her music without her authorization:
.@RIDM he also used @iskell music without permission. Using our music to stigmatize and discredit our culture. I'm disgusted.
— tanya tagaq (@tagaq) November 25, 2015
.@GlobeArts @exclaimdotca @exclaimeditor I'm deeply offended by the unauthorized use of my music in a very racist film approved by @RIDM
— tanya tagaq (@tagaq) November 25, 2015
Stereotypical content and infringement of copyright does not mean "art", it merely exacerbates debilitating opinions and promotes violence.
— tanya tagaq (@tagaq) November 25, 2015
"It's just been within the last couple generations that we've had to deal with the fallout of residential schools," Tagaq told CBC News. "I went to residential school. Watching that film triggered a lot of really terrible things for me, and that's what I'm talking about. It's not his place." RIDM's artistic director, Charlotte Selb, told CBC that she stood behind the decision to show the film, arguing that it provoked important debate.
"It's a discussion about how, as settlers, we perceive our own colonial past and the present reality of the Inuit people," said Selb, who added that filmmakers are expected to cleared the rights for the music and footage in their films. "Very disturbing films can better achieve their goal than a film that will make the white spectator comfortable about what's going on in the north."
But Inuit filmmaker Alethea Arnaquq-Baril disagrees.
"Violent, wandering drunks that neglect their children and don't care for the lives of animals: that's the image I took away from the film," she said from her home in Iqaluit.
"I think it's kind of a cheap move to totally play up a negative stereotype of a marginalized people for your own artistic gain."
Later in the day, Tagaq announced that the film had been pulled from the festival:
BRAVO! Quebec film fest pulls racist film from their roster. https://t.co/mPPgXLZah4 thank you for respecting our culture!
— tanya tagaq (@tagaq) November 25, 2015
