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How are you? I am clueless

Inuit film pokes fun at Qallunaat fondness for dumb generalizations

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Director Mark Sandiford (right) checks out the set of the mock Qallunaat Studies Institute, before the actors played out a scene involving the measurement of wind over a balding white man's head. (PHOTO COURTESY OF HERB TYLER)

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"A study on southerners recently revealed that their obsession with asking 'how are you' comes from their ancestors' inability to look and see, and decide for themselves."

Sound strange?

In the world of Qallunology - studying the strange habits of white man's culture - it's merely a twist on what Inuit have suffered since they met the first European explorer, namely gross generalizations about their culture.

A former resident of Iqaluit and a creative group of Inuit actors are putting that ironic world onto film in an upcoming movie, The Big Hellos.

The result is bound for national exposure on CTV and APTN, and possibly film festivals around the world, in English and Inuktitut.

The film is loosely based on the sardonic writings of Zebedee Nungak, of Kangirsuk, who coined the phrase "Qallunology," to point out how there's a lack of social studies on Qallunaat, or southerners.

Mark Sandiford, the film's director, said the movie takes aim at white people who view their culture as "normal," and other minority cultures are "strange."

"A mainstream Canadian audience doesn't... think much of themselves having a culture," Sandiford said. "I think it's good for people to be reminded your culture colours the way you look at the world.

"If you look at all these cultures, and see yours is just one, you might think twice about trying to change other people's lives."

Despite the serious message, The Big Hellos sticks to humour as a way to reach its audience.

In one recorded scene, Inuit scientists in lab coats look over a specimen group of southerners, at the fictitious Qallunaat Studies Institute, filmed at Nunavut Arctic College in Iqaluit. At one point, the Inuit conduct an experiment on the velocity of wind over the top of one man's balding head.

In another segment, Inuit gather around a boardroom table for a Qallunaat Studies Conference. They share observations of the white men, from their various ways of saying "hello," to noting that they have many false religions and perhaps someone needs to save their souls.

Then, a mock debate breaks out about whether Inuit shamans should be sent to convert the Europeans, or conquer them.

By the end, the Inuit scientists gather on one side of the table to learn a southern song from an earnest white man with a banjo, who they invited to conduct opening and closing ceremonies.

The white man leaves, proudly wearing a "Q" number, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the "E" or "Eskimo" numbers that Inuit were forced to keep until the 1960s, in order to receive social assistance. In the film, the "Q" number allows the white man to buy carvings.

Sandiford admits some people might view the movie as racist because it makes fun of white people.

But he feels that the humour is gentle enough that most people won't be offended.

"It's almost like Qallunaat are one of the only ones left on earth who are fair game for this kind of comment," he said. "It's like payback time in a way."

Sandiford expects that the end product will be bittersweet for his collaborator, Nungak. He often writes about the difficulties that residential school caused him, as part of the alleged "Experimental Eskimo" project that chose promising Inuit students to go to Ottawa, to see how they handled a formal education away from home.

Nungak sits down with a former teacher in the film, and laughs about their classroom memories. But Sandiford sensed a tension that he expects will thread through the movie, similar to the questions that northern living brought to his own life.

"You go in thinking one way about the world," Sandiford said. "And you leave thinking another way about the world."

"That's the sort of experience I'm trying to generate for the audience."

Nungak declined to comment on the film, except to say: "If I imagine it as a carving that is in the works, without any idea of what shape it's going to be, I might be talking about something that could be a big flop."

Sandiford expects the film will likely be broadcast in 2006. It's produced by his company, Beachwalker Films, in Prince Edward Island, and is funded in part by the National Film Board.

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