Marie-Hélène Cousineau

Marie-Hélène Cousineau is a Canadian film director and producer. Originally from Quebec, she moved to Igloolik, Northwest Territories (now in Nunavut) in 1990, where she became a co-founder of the filmmaking collective Arnait Video Productions.

Her most noted film, Before Tomorrow , was co-directed with Madeline Ivalu and released in 2008. Cousineau and Ivalu were shortlisted Genie Award nominees for Best Director, and alongside co-writer Susan Avingaq for Best Adapted Screenplay, at the 30th Genie Awards in 2010. Cousineau later collaborated with Ivalu on the film Uvanga, and with Avingaq on the documentary film Sol. Sol is a feature documentary, that explores the mysterious death of a young Inuk man, Solomon Uyurasuk. As the documentary investigates the truth to Solomon's death, it sheds light on the underlying social issues of Canada's North that has resulted in this region claiming one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world.

More recently, Cousineau has collaborated with Ivalu on Restless River, an adaptation of Gabrielle Roy's unpublished work , previously translated and published as Windflower.

Background Marie-Hélène Cousineau was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She received her undergraduate degree in art history from the Université Laval, an MA in art history from the and an MFA in communication studies and production from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. She has taught at different colleges and at Concordia University in Montreal.

Cousineau moved to Igloolik in 1990 to work with Zacharias Kunuk to establish the Tarriaksuk Video Centre. While in Igloolik she gave a class through the Arctic College in Igloolik on how to make videos. From this class Cousineau was inspired to create a Survey for a Woman’s Video Workshop (1991). This film featured women who wanted to learn to make videos. It was used in a funding application and in 1991 Arnait Ikajurtigiit – which translates to “women helping each other was founded.

Samuel Cohn-Cousineau, her son with Norman Cohn, is also a screenwriter and film producer, whose work has included collaborations with his mother on Tia and Piujuq and with Kunuk on Wrong Husband (Uiksaringitara).

Films

Inuit Midwives (1991) Attagutalak Starvation (1992) Quilliq (1993) Anaana (2001) Before Tomorrow (2008) (writer and co-director with Madeline Ivalu) The Uluit: Champions of the North (2011) (producer) Uvanga (2013) (writer/director) Sol (2014) (co-director with Susan Avingaq and co-writer with Dana Schoel) Tia and Piujuq (producer/screenwriter) Angelique's Isle (2018) (director) Restless River (2019) (co-directed with Madeline Ivalu)