Weetaluktuk, Jobie

Essayist, producer and documentary filmmaker born in Kangirsukallak (Nunavik) in 1958.

Jobie Weetaluktuk was born in Kangirsukallak, south of the village of Inukjuak on the eastern shore of Hudson’s Bay in 1958. He studied radio and journalism in Ottawa, Ontario, before working for the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation (IBC) in Iqaluit, Nunavut developing scripts for film and television. Jobie’s films provide insight into historical and contemporary Inuit cultural reactions to colonialism. He has narrated scripts in Inuktitut for IMAX, the BBC, and for the Montréal Symphony Orchestra’s collaborative performance of Tusarnituuq! Nagano in the Land of the Inuit / Nagano au pays des Inuits. In this 2008 concert, Weetaluktuk performed an Inuktitut narration of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale.

In 2009, Jobie Weetaluktuk produced Kakkalaakkuvik: Where the Children Dwell, a personal perspective on the impact of residential schooling which was screened for the Truth and Reconciliation hearings held in Montréal in 2013. Jobie Weetaluktuk’s documentary films are award winning: in 2006, Qallunajatut: Urban Inuk (2006) won the Rigoberta Menchú Grand Prize at the Terres en Vues/Land-InSight First People’s Festival in Montréal. In 2009, Umiaq Skin Boat (2008) was awarded the Material Culture and Archaeology Prize at the 11th Royal Anthropological Institute International Festival of Ethnographic Film (London) and InukShop (2009) was awarded Honourable Mention for Best Experimental Film at the imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival (Toronto). Timuti (2012) won Aboriginal Award at the Yorkton Film Festival in 2014.

Jobie Weetaluktuk has published over a dozen articles on Inuit writing, food and culture, primarily for Helium magazine and with Robyn Bryant, authored Le monde de Tivi Etok. La vie et l'art d'un aîné inuit / The World of Tivi Etok. The Life and Art of An Inuit Elder/ ᑏᕕ ᐃᑦᑑᑉ ᐃᓅᓯᖓ ᓴᓇᓐᖑᐊᕈᓯᖓᓗ ᐅᓂᒃᑲᐅᓯᖏᓪᓗ, (2008) which was transformed into a National Film Board documentary, of the same name in 2012.

Jobie Weetaluktuk is a part-time faculty member of the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University in Montréal. His wife, Dr. Carol Rowan is a consultant in early childhood education.

This biography is based on the available written material during a collective research carried out during 2018-2021. It is possible that mistakes and facts need to be corrected. If you notice an error, or if you wish to correct something in an author's biography, please write to us at imaginairedunord@uqam.ca and we will be happy to do so. This is how we will be able to have more precise presentations, and to better promote Inuit culture.

 

(c) International Laboratory for Research on Images of the North, Winter and the Arctic, Université du Québec à Montréal, 2018-2021, Daniel Chartier and al.