Isuma Distribution is launching the inaugural IsumaTV Online Film Festival on March 2, with the aim of giving remote and international communities access to indigenous feature films, documentaries and shorts.

Isuma Distribution, which specializes in Inuit and Aboriginal films, owns IsumaTV, a digital multimedia platform for indigenous filmmakers and media organizations. The platform currently carries over 5,000 films and videos in more than 70 languages across more than 800 user-generated channels.

The online film festival content will be offered via the IsumaTV platform from March 2 to April 1, and will include the world premieres of the Zacharias Kunuk documentaries My Father’s Land and Coming Home. Other films on the festival’s program include Rolf de Heer’s Ten Canoes and Shane Belcourt’s Tkaronto.

The festival also partnered with the Toronto International Film Festival to feature a selection of films from the TIFF Cinematheque program, including Alanis Obomsawin’s Incident at Restigouche, Auraeus Solito’s Busong (Palawan Fate) and a series of short films from Jeff Barnaby.

In order to adhere to rights and geoblocking restrictions, the TIFF  programming will only be offered in communities that are connected to an IsumaTV Media Player, a local caching server that is designed to bypass the slow internet speeds and data transfer limits that often exist in remote communities.  The MediaPlayer allows users to upload, share and view media on IsumaTV digital platform at full quality, regardless of the internet connection. The remainder of the film festival’s content will be available in all territories via IsumaTV.

Financing for the first edition of the festival came from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth. The Toronto International Film Festival also provided financing for their portion of the programming.