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Alanis Obomsawin, Sleeping During the Oka Crisis, 1990. Photo: John Kenney

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Canada Vignettes: June in Povungnituk - Quebec Arctic , Alanis Obomsawin, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

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“I think that the way we have taught the history of this country has been a crime. The way that it was designed to create hate towards our people for a very long time.”

Alanis Obomsawin, 2015

Robb, P. (2015, February 19). Alanis Obomsawin: The power of art revealed in film. Ottawa Citizen. https://ottawacitizen.com/entertainment/movies/alanis-obomsawin-the-power-of-art-revealed

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Introduction

Alanis Obomsawin, an Indigenous filmmaker, activist, artist, and a member of the Abenaki nation, initially drew attention to herself as a composer and singer who was raising money for an outdoor pool for the children of the Odanak reserve, the place where she grew up. Living through some of the most important decades in Indigenous activism and resistance within Canada, Alanis has been producing documentary films since the late 1960s on Indigenous culture, history, and stories. Using film as a tool of resistance and education, she has exposed the disparities of government policy and its effect on Indigenous communities, raised awareness for Indigenous-centred issues, and has highlighted the beauty and power of Indigenous communities and their cultures. She is driven by the educational capability of documentary films, seeing them as sites of witnessing and Indigenous oral tradition that can empower Indigenous people and change the public perception of Indigenous issues.

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Indigenous Resistance Through Film

Obomsawin reimages Indigeneity through the medium of filmmaking. Following the lives of Indigenous people across “Canada,” and taking a particular interest in their struggle for sovereignty and state recognition, Obomsawin renegotiates the objective, omnipotent presence of the documentary filmmaker and rather positions herself within the struggle, centering Indigenous culture, history, and experiences as the argument, evidence, and conclusion of her films. Therefore, her work contests twofold; firstly the ways in which documentary filmmaking as a medium has been used in the colonial sense to control public perception/understanding of a certain event, people, or history, and secondly, the subject matter of her films — seminal Indigenous issues and events in Canada — expose the continuous colonial violence that is enacted upon by all levels of government towards Indigenous people, whilst challenging official histories and narratives about Canada’s relationship with Indigenous people. Her films continue to see what the rest of the county cannot see, or chooses to ignore.

Obomsawin’s filmmaking practice begins with listening. Often, before any second that is caught on camera, she will go into the community that she is working with alone, without a crew or a camera, and engage in conversation and daily life. She insists on building relationships and connections first, attentive to witnessing before any act of producing. Her participatory style of filmmaking adapts the didactic documentary tradition. Obomsawin appears in all of her films, seated in homes interviewing subjects, engaging with children in schools, or barricaded behind the lines during a resistance. You will often hear her voice encouraging subjects during interviews, or laughing with a group. Her presence throughout the films reminds viewers of her intimate, intrinsic connection to the subject matter — as an Indigenous woman she is just as much shaped and informed by the events, communities, and histories that she documents. 

The subject matter of Obomsawin’s films speak to the ongoing effects of settler colonialism, genocide, persecution, and state surveillance of Indigenous people. Incident at Restigouche (1984) follows the raids on the Listuguj Mi'gmaq First Nation by the Quebec provincial police, as an effort of imposing restrictions on their fishing rights, Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child (1986) is a devastating examination of Canada's child welfare system in regards to the (mis)treatment of Indigenous children and youth, and the harm that the system causes. Christmas at Moose Factory (1971), her first feature-length film, is filmed at a residential school in northern Ontario around Christmas time, Hi-Ho Mistahey! (2013) follows the campaign Shannen’s Dream, which lobbies for improved educational opportunities for Indigenous youth, and examines the on-going impacts of the lack of proper education for Indigenous youth, and Our People Will Be Healed (2017) profiles the Helen Betty Osborne Ininiw Education Resource Centre in Norway House Cree Nation, the structure of the school, offering a vision for what Indigenous based education could look like in the future, whilst recognizing the challenges the school is facing today.

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993) documents the Kanehsatà:ke Resistance/Oka Crisis and is the most well known of Obomsawin’s films. Had it not been for Obomsawin and her crew documenting 250 hours worth of footage behind the barricade, in standoff with the military, and at the end of resistance, the public memory of this event would have been shaped solely by one-sided government press releases, limited CBC reporting, and Prime Minister Mulroney asserting that the Mohawk warriors were dangerous criminals with illegal weapons. Emotive, intense moments behind the barricade, articulated through interviews with individual Mohawk warriors, offer a closer account of the events instead. Obomsawin’s uncompromising and partisan view of what occurred at the Oka golf course gave way for Mohawk historical narratives to be re-articulated and Indigenous efforts for self-determination to be legitimised.

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Alanis Obomsawin, Incident at Restigouche (1984)

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locating myself

I am a settler in Canada, and recognize how my understanding of Indigenous cultures, history, and resistance is consistently mediated through the government and its projects of settler colonialism and white supremacy. Maintaining a personal practice of introducing myself to Indigenous writers, thinkers, and artists, and consuming their work, has helped me realise how misconstrued my previous understandings were, or more often just how much I did not know. Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993) was the first film of Alanis’ that I watched, and I remember how captivated I was by her ability to balance historical context with her subject matter, and the enduring honesty of her work. Many of her films have been jumping off points for me and my reading/listening/watching endeavours.

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title screen from Alanis Obomsawin's Mother of Many Children (1977)

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Canadian filmmaker, Alanis Obomsawin at the Mariposa Folk Festival c., 1967.

SOURCE: Instagram @onf_nfb

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Alanis On Education

Obomsawin’s belief in the educational capacity of documentary lies at the core of her work. As a filmmaker, she emphasises that her aim is "to make sure that our people are heard. I want to expose the injustices. I look for social changes. [My role] is to make sure that these films, these documents, are used in the educational system." (Harewood, 2003) Early into her career with the NFB, Alanis helped develop multimedia educational kits for classrooms, with short films, photographs, colouring books, activities, and objects that all were connected to an Indigenous community. She worked with the Líl̓wat Nation in British Columbia and the Atikamekw of Manawan band of the Atikamekw Nation in south-western Quebec to develop their own respective education kits. In an interview with Tom Powers (2021), when asked about education and her films, Obomsawin adds this: “My main interest all my life has been education, because that's where you develop yourself, where you learn to hate or love.” Not wanting other Indigenous children to go through what she had to in public school, her practice of filmmaking began.

Harewood, A. (2003, June 1). Alanis Obomsawin: a portrait of a first nation's filmmaker. Take One.

Power, T., & CBC. (2021, September 29). After 6 decades of art and activism, Alanis Obomsawin is still holding up a mirror to Canada. YouTube. Retrieved October, 2023, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7EwdJvelEQ

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"I was very young and wanted to influence change of what they were teaching about the history of this country."

Alanis Obomsawin in an interview with CBC

Taylor, J. (2015, February 14). Master doc maker passes knowledge on to aspiring indigenous filmmakers. CBC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/alanis-obomsawin-passes-knowledge-to-aspiring-filmmakers-1.2953663

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Children's drawings from Christmas At Moose Factory (1971)

This was Alanis' first feature-length documentary.