(119 minutes, 1993) On a July day in 1990, a confrontation propelled Native issues in Kanehsatake and the village of Oka, Quebec, into the international spotlight. Director Alanis Obomsawin spent 78 nerve-wracking days and nights filming the armed stand-off between the Mohawks, the Quebec police and the Canadian army. This powerful documentary takes you right into the action of an age-old Aboriginal struggle. The result is a portrait of the people behind the barricades.
View: "Kanehsatake, 270 ans de résistance" par Alanis Obomsawin
(119 minutes, 1992) Documentaire sur la confrontation historique qui a propulsé les problèmes des Autochtones de Kanehsatake et du village d'Oka au Québec au premier plan de la scène internationale et de la conscience des Canadiens. Au cours de cet été épuisant de 1990, la productrice et réalisatrice Alanis Obomsawin, elle-même Abénaquise, a passé 78 jours et nuits angoissants derrière les barricades dressées par les Mohawks, à tourner des images du conflit armé les opposant à la Sûreté du Québec et l'Armée canadienne.
Alanis Obomsawin is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker, she was born in New Hampshire in 1932. When she was six months old her family moved to the Odanak reserve near Sorel, Quebec. Théophile Panadis, her mother's cousin taught her the songs and stories of the Abenaki Nation. At age nine she was uprooted to Trois-Rivieres, Quebec. Having grown up speaking only the Abenaki language, she had to learn French and, as the only aboriginal child at school, was taunted and beaten regularly. As a young woman she learned English and trained as a beautician before moving to Montreal, to become a folksinger and storyteller. Once she started to work with the National Film Board of Canada, she continued making films with a strong focus on social justice and aboriginal people. Her most acclaimed work was the 1993 documentary Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, about the 1990 Oka crisis. In 2009 Obomsawin was selected to be honoured with a retrospective of her work and an outstanding achievement award from the Hot Docs documentary Toronto Film Festival. Her work has been honoured and shown in festivals around the world.
Other related post links with her films to watch:
Watch 1993 interview of filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin "Behind Mohawk Lines"
The filmmaker describes some harrowing moments in the making of her 1993 documentary of the Oka crisis. Kahnesatake: 270 Years of Resistance: National Film Board of Canada.
Video Film: "Kanehsatake 270 Years of Resistance by Alanis Obomsawin - Kanehsatake, 270 ans de résistance"
Video: Documentary on Alanis Obomsawin, the activist
Video: "Telling Our Stories" by Alanis Obomsawin
Video documentary film "Hi-Ho Mistahey!" "I Love You Very Much!" directed by Alanis Obomsawin ~ the story of Shannen’s Dream
Video documentary film "Our Nationhood"
Video Documentary Film: "Is The Crown At War With Us?" by Alanis Obomsawin - "La Couronne Cherche-t-elle à Nous Faire La Guerre?"
Watch her various documentaries made with the National Film Board of Canada
