Alanis Obomsawin — Director (19)
cover
Professor Norman Cornett: 'Since when do we divorce the right answer from an honest answer?' (2009) [Movie] TMDB
Professor Norman Cornett: 'Since when do we divorce the right answer from an honest answer?'
director: Alanis Obomsawin
This feature documentary by Alanis Obomsawin is a thoughtful tribute to Norman Cornett, a McGill University professor celebrated by scores of students appreciative of his unconventional yet powerful teaching methods who was controversially dismissed from his teaching duties in 2007.
cover
Spudwrench - Kahnawake Man (1998) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Spudwrench - Kahnawake Man
director: Alanis Obomsawin
other title: Spudwrench : l'homme de Kahnawake
This documentary by acclaimed filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin introduces us to Randy Horne, a high steel worker from the Mohawk community of Kahnawake, near Montreal. As a defender of his people's culture and traditions, he was known as "Spudwrench" during the 1990 Oka crisis. Offering a unique look behind the barricades at one man's impassioned defence of sacred territory, the film is both a portrait of Horne and the generations of daring Mohawk construction workers that have preceded him.
cover
Our Nationhood (2003) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Our Nationhood
director: Alanis Obomsawin
In this feature-length documentary, Indigenous filmmaker and artist Alanis Obomsawin chronicles the determination and tenacity of the Listuguj Mi'kmaq people to use and manage the natural resources of their traditional lands. The film provides a contemporary perspective on the Mi'kmaq people's ongoing struggle and ultimate success, culminating in the community receiving an award for Best Managed River from the same government that had denied their traditional rights.
cover
L’íl’wata (1975) [Movie] TMDB
L’íl’wata
director: Alanis Obomsawin
The people of the L'íl'wat First Nation record their personal narratives about their culture, history, education, and the impact of residential schools.
cover
Waban-Aki: People from Where the Sun Rises (2006) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Waban-Aki: People from Where the Sun Rises
director: Alanis Obomsawin
other title: Waban-Aki: People From Where the Sun Rises
Having dedicated nearly four decades to chronicling the lives of Canada's First Nations, Alanis Obomsawin returns to the village where she was raised to tell her own people's history of prosperity, displacement, endurance, and revitalization.
cover
Is the Crown at war with us? (2003) [Movie] TMDB WikiData IMDb
Is the Crown at war with us?
director: Alanis Obomsawin actor: Alanis Obomsawin
other title: Is the Crown At War With Us?
In the summer of 2000, federal fishery officers appeared to wage war on the Mi'gmaq fishermen of Burnt Church, New Brunswick. Why would officials of the Canadian government attack citizens for exercising rights that had been affirmed by the highest court in the land? Alanis Obomsawin casts her nets into history to provide a context for the events on Miramichi Bay.
cover
Mother of Many Children (1977) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Mother of Many Children
director: Alanis Obomsawin actor: Alanis Obomsawin
This film is an album of Native womanhood, portraying a proud matriarchal society that for centuries has been pressured to adopt different standards and customs. All of the women featured share a belief in the importance of tradition as a source of strength in the face of change.
cover
Rocks at Whiskey Trench (2000) [Movie] TMDB WikiData IMDb
Rocks at Whiskey Trench
director: Alanis Obomsawin actor: Alanis Obomsawin
other title: Pluie de pierre à Whiskey Trench
The fourth film in Alanis Obomsawin's landmark series on the Oka crisis uses a single, shameful incident as a lens through which to examine the region's long history of prejudice and injustice against the Mohawk population.
cover
Hi-Ho Mistahey! (2013) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Hi-Ho Mistahey!
director: Alanis Obomsawin
Alanis Obomsawin tells the story of Shannen’s Dream, a national campaign to provide equitable access to education for First Nations children, in safe and suitable schools. She brings together the voices of those who have successfully brought the Dream all the way to the United Nations in Geneva.
cover
Trick or Treaty? (2014) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Trick or Treaty?
director: Alanis Obomsawin actor: Alanis Obomsawin
other title: Ruse ou Traité
Legendary Canadian documentarian Alanis Obomsawin digs into the tangled history of Treaty 9 — the infamous 1905 agreement wherein First Nations communities relinquished sovereignty over their traditional territories — to reveal the deceptions and distortions which the document has been subjected to by successive governments seeking to deprive Canada’s First Peoples of their lands.
cover
We Can't Make the Same Mistake Twice (2016) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
We Can't Make the Same Mistake Twice
director: Alanis Obomsawin
other title: On ne peut pas faire deux fois la même erreur
The new film from celebrated documentarian Alanis Obomsawin (Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance) chronicles the events following the filing of a human-rights complaint by a group of activists, which charged that the federal government's woefully inadequate funding of services for Indigenous children constituted a discriminatory practice.
cover
Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger (2019) [Movie] TMDB IMDb WikiData
Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger
director: Alanis Obomsawin actor: Alanis Obomsawin / Jordan River Anderson …
other title: Jordan River Anderson, le messager / Jordan River Anderson, the Messenger
The story of a young boy forced to spend all five years of his short life in hospital while the federal and provincial governments argued over which was responsible for his care, as well as the long struggle of Indigenous activists to force the Canadian government to enforce “Jordan’s Principle” — the promise that no First Nations children would experience inequitable access to government-funded services again.
cover
Amisk (1977) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
Amisk
director: Alanis Obomsawin actor: Alanis Obomsawin / Duke Redbird …
A performing arts film by Alanis Obomsawin, it documents efforts to raise funds for the James Bay Cree and was made at a time when Cree territory was threatened by hydro-electric projects. Amisk represents early work by Obomsawin, a trailblazer in Canadian Aboriginal film.
cover
Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child (1986) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child
director: Alanis Obomsawin actor: Cory Swan / Pauline Kerik …
This short documentary is a moving tribute to Richard Cardinal, a Métis adolescent who committed suicide in 1984. Taken from his home at the age of 4 due to family problems, he spent the rest of his 17 short years moving in and out of 28 foster homes, group homes and shelters in Alberta. A sensitive, articulate young man, Richard Cardinal left behind a diary upon which this film is based.
cover
No Address (1988) [Movie] WikiData IMDb TMDB
No Address
director: Alanis Obomsawin
Far from home and cut off from family and friends, Montreal’s Indigenous homeless population is the focus of No Address. Dreams of a better life in the big city can be met with harsh realities, as the individuals in this documentary recount. Often trying to flee circumstances created by colonialism and the effects of assimilation, the First Nations and Inuit people in this work share frank stories about their lives and the paths that took them to the streets of Montreal. Alanis Obomsawin presents an honest, stark portrayal of endemic homelessness while giving voice to those so often overlooked or made invisible on the streets of every city in Canada.
cover
Christmas at Moose Factory (1971) [Movie] Douban
Christmas at Moose Factory
director: Alanis Obomsawin
other title: 圣诞麋鹿学院
雪花紛飛的季節，遠方鐘聲捎來節慶的氣氛。那是許多孩子最期待的時刻，但它的存在也表徵著殖民的開端。此為奧柏莎溫展開電影生涯的首部作品，觸碰加拿大歷史黑暗的面向——加拿大「印第安住宿學校」的長期設置，以極為溫柔細膩的方式勾勒出可愛又傷感的小品。
位於北安大略省詹姆斯灣的寄宿學校裡，無法與家人相聚的克里族 (Cree) 孩子們以蠟筆勾勒他們心中的節日，以自己的語言說出自己的故事。
cover
Kanehsatake, 270 Years of Resistance (2003) [Movie] WikiData Douban IMDb TMDB
Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
director: Alanis Obomsawin actor: Alanis Obomsawin
other title: 카네사테이크: 270 이어스 오브 레지스턴스 / 坎那沙塔奇：270年的抗争史 …
In July 1990, a dispute over a proposed golf course to be built on Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) lands in Oka, Quebec, sets the stage for a historic confrontation that would grab international headlines and sear itself into the Canadian consciousness.