Thank you, Lucy.
What has made Isuma possible, in addition to making fantastic films, is the ability to create a sustainable business enterprise in the very remote community of Igloolik, which has a population of only 2,000. It's about five hours north of here.
Through the work of Norman Cohn and Zacharias Kunuk, they figured out a way to create a collective group of companies and non-profit agencies to support the whole process of production from start to finish. They've incorporated for-profit companies, have a non-profit agency that is now recognized by the CMF as a broadcaster, and recently started a distribution company.
It's that fabric of relationships between the organizations that lets Isuma be the largest non-government employer in Igloolik, larger than mining activity and other new forms of economic opportunities in the north, while creating a product that supports Inuit culture and language.
We've now recently started to export this model of indigenous and locally produced production to other nations within Canada. We're working with the Haida Nation and recently launched a film called Edge of the Knife, which is in the Haida language, a language spoken by only 24 people left in the world. It's been getting a lot of international and national news coverage on the success of its ability to help restore that language. It's been reaffirming for Isuma to see that this is a model that can be expanded and applied to other areas.
Part of the challenge we're currently facing is the ability to get our content out to indigenous audiences. There are very few distributors in the marketplace and very, very few who support the type of work we do. Indigenous-language subtitled films don't meet the typical standards for investment by distribution companies, and if you don't have a distributor, you're not eligible to apply for Telefilm financing.
The Canadian government has been very great in creating a production capacity—production support—for films, but we feel that there's a bit of a lag in the ability to get films to market. What we're trying to do is look for resources, partners and opportunities to get these important films to the audience members who care about them the most.
Currently, Isuma Distribution is pulling together money. We have very good support from local government agencies. We have created a hybrid system using Internet distribution through our own website—IsumaTV—and through iTunes, and we're in talks with Netflix. We do a lot of community tours to take the films to these remote communities with a professional projection kit so that we can provide the theatrical community screening environment and, again, so people can celebrate the films where they matter most. We also host film screenings in small independent theatres, recognizing that it's not commercially viable to try to sell weeks of a run for a theatre that sits 600 people, but it's very viable for a small 50-seat theatre to run a few days here and there.
That's what we're hoping for more support on. A big part of the ability to distribute these films in remote communities is improved Internet connectivity. The north faces one of the most expensive and poorly served Internet connections within Canada. It's 10 times the price and one-tenth of the speed of the Internet you get down south, so there is no ability for these consumers and audience members to easily access the content that we're creating.
I'll leave it at that for now. Thank you very much for your time.