Uummannaq Polar Institute

Uummannaq Music is a program that is run in close collaboration with  Uummannaq Polar Institute (UPI).

UPI is an institution that works to conserve Greenland’s local culture, traditional Greenlandic arts, preservation of dogsledding and historical hunting techniques, and to promote educational programs for young Inuit people.

UPI was founded in 2007 by Ann Andreasen and was inaugurated in 2008 by HSH the Prince Albert II of Monaco, Jean Malaurie, a distinguished French ethnographer, and by Arthur Chilingarov, polar explorer and Vice-President of the Russian Parliament.

Ann Andreasen is the Director of UPI and Jean Malaurie is its Honorary President.

Among other UPI’s programs is an hour and a half movie called Inuk. The film which won the coveted Haskell Wexler Award for Cinematography at the Woodstock Film Festival during October 2010, is directed by Mike Magidson and the screenplay is co-written by him and Jean-Michel Huctin. (http://blog.inuk-film.com/)

The UPI has plans to publish an Internet magazine in the Greenlandic language dealing with scientific and cultural questions covering all of Greenland.