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10 Wednesday February 10 2016 ARTS CULTURE COMEDY By CRAIG GILBERT They could be the most interesting men and women in Nunavut. From some of their earliest work spoofing an Old Spice ad campaign and the Dos Equis beer most interesting man in the world the five-person team producing Qanurli a skit comedy show posted online and aired on APTN has been getting more and bigger laughs since they launched with the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation in 2010. The team of Stacey Aglok Vinnie Karetak Malaya Chapman Joshua Qaumariaq and Thomas Anguti Johnston work in an all- hands-on-deck system with everyone sharing duties in acting producing filming lighting and writing. They just finished filming sea- son five and are in the process of developing season six. Qanurli translates to what now IBC was a great way to start Aglok said. We learned enough and got lucky in that we were able to form a group really early on of people who were excited and really commit- ted to making the best of it and challenging ourselves. I think it was mainly that we were all so in it and committed to it that we were able to take it to five seasons. One year ago this month they moved out from under the wing of the IBC and formed a private company which opened the door to more federal filmmaking funding which in turn gave them more capacity to train. There was some of us that acted some of us that had production companies some of us had written but not all of us had ever written or acted or produced a TV show be- fore Karetak said. When we got together we were unsure of what to do we would fol- low the lead of the one producer from IBC and even then she was trying to work with younger folks who had never done this before. She wasnt really into teaching that much. The three members of the team who spoke to the Journal via telephone from Iqaluit agree the quality of the show has steadily increased and after five years they are still the only comedy show produced anywhere in Canadas North. More than a niche that content gap provided Qanurli with miles of leeway for material and a hungry younger audience that did not see themselves repre- sented anywhere else. Inuit content that was coming out was a lot of talking heads and pan shots and Inuktitut skit comedy show Qanurli still growing old footage for general discussion Kare- tak said. That didnt catch the attention of the younger folks. This TV show has re- ally brought a lot of humour out and a lot of excitement. Added Aglok Up here dealing with APTN especially there is a lot of focus on documentary but not so much on drama or comedy actually using scripts and actors. I think thats pretty special were not only doing it in Inuktitut our own language were doing it in a format that hasnt been done in the North. So what now Qanurli is the groups focus but they have ambitions to add capacity and take on other projects. Were excited too about a feature film which we want to do someday. A docu- mentary we would also be interested in doing Aglok said. The really good thing about TV is its continuous. It has a high possibility of year-round work and year- round training opportunities for different people us included. There are so many possibilities in television for capacity- building including eventually having enough of us to have multiple projects going on at once. Thats definitely a goal of ours for sure. They also plan to expand the shows scope beyond Nunavut to include all of Canadas North and even other coun- tries with Inuit populations. Judging by their Facebook traffic the shows fan base recently exploded in Greenland for example. One of the big goals lately has been that in the past we have been very Nunavut- focused - made for Nunavimmiut by Nun- avimmiut Aglok said. But were growing and wanting to challenge ourselves more and part of that is including Inuit and other Aboriginal groups from all over Canada really. Were doing a shoot in a couple of weeks in Nunavik which is northern Que- bec and maybe someday well be able to take the show to Northwest Territories and Greenland. If that plan pans out the content should keep coming. Inuit humour is some of the funniest Chapman said. Its really dry humour. In Inuktitut the show is funny but then you try to bring it into English and on the cam- era like it doesnt quite translate. Yesterday we had a conversation about one Inuk word that could be translated three different ways - try to translate that to English. Inuktitut is way funnier than English. Team Qanurli Joshua Qaumariaq Stacey Aglok MacDonald Kathy Avrich-Johnson Janice Dawe Vinnie Karetak and Thomas Anguti Johnston. PhotoscourtesyofQanurli All of the Qanurli team members write act direct and produce each show. Yesterday we had a conversation about one Inuk word that could be translated three different ways. Inuktitut is way funnier than English. Malaya Chapman Qanurli