Canadian Women Film Directors Database
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Alanis Obomsawin

Countries: Canada / United States
Born: 1932

Films directed by Alanis Obomsawin

Quotes by Alanis Obomsawin

"As a documentary filmmaker [...] you have to want to hear and to listen. I usually do a sound interview before I go in with a camera crew to just listen as long as I can until I feel I know what the story is. I always go back to the first interview I did because what goes on there is never going to happen again. Often people get very moved by what they're talking about and sometimes they say things they never said to anyone before; it's very sacred. I think it's so important to want to hear and have a lot of respect for the subject that you are going to be working with; but listen until you feel what you know what the story is."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"Documentaries play a valuable role in truthful reconciliation, as a record of history, and of how lives go to a better place—a place of decolonization."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"Documentary film is the one place that our people can speak for themselves. I feel that the documentaries that I've been working on have been very valuable for the people, for our people to look at ourselves, at the situations, really facing it, and through that being able to make changes that really count for the future of our children to come."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"Eventually, through circumstance, I became a documentary filmmaker and quickly realized the power of film to educate. I also believe that the word is the main component of a story. This stems from when I was a child back in Odanak. In the evening, oil lamps were the only source of light. We children would sit by the lamp light and listen to the stories that the adults would tell about our history, about the animal world, and about their lives."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"I always had problems because I was Indian and all that goes with that. All of a sudden there were many other reasons—because I was a woman, because I had a child, I wasn't married. I fitted all those things that [make] people feel you don't belong. I was surprised, because I was so used to being put down, because I am Indian and all that. But all of a sudden there were so many other things, it was like a discovery of how a lot of other people are put down just because they are women. And there weren't many women filmmakers—certainly not Indigenous women filmmakers. And when I came into the [National] Film Board, although I was invited there, it was also difficult because there were people who were called the experts on Indians, so they didn't like my presence there. So there were all those things to go through, and to continue working, and fight back and advance a bit more. If I didn't believe as much as I did in what I was doing, I would have never lasted."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"I feel so passionately about these issues. So as long as I have my health, I'm going to be working. I just can't think about what people call retirement. I really have no time for that."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"I went through a very, very difficult time at school. The stories we were being told about our people (were) horrifying. (The system) was really designed to get Canadians to hate First People, Métis people and Inuit people. It was very much built that way—telling us that our language was Satan's language and we were savages. It was really awful. As a matter of fact, it's the reason I'm in the business of making films and singing. Because of the horrible experience I had in school, this is how I started thinking I had to do something. I wanted the children to hear another story other than the ones they were being told."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"Racism and prejudice exist there [at the National Film Board] like anywhere else. My history at the Board has not been easy. It's been a long walk."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"So much history can be lost if no one tells the story—so that's what I do. I tell the stories. This is my way of fighting for social change."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"When I was a young girl, my community didn't have electricity or running water, and we had an earth road. I don't say dirt road, that's an insult to my Mother—the Earth is not dirty, it gives you everything. We had oil lamps. At night, we were in the kitchen, the adults were fishing and hunting guides, and a lot of their stories were experiences in the bush. If you had four or five children listening, you have four or five sets of images in their minds. That's four or five films right there. For me the root of making films is always listening. The word is sacred. So I make many visits to people who I think I want to make a film about. I never come with the camera first. I listen. That develops a trust, and places you in such a beautiful place in the heart of a person, who then is not afraid."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

Quotes by Alanis Obomsawin [in French]

"Je fais des films aujourd'hui pour la même raison que je chantais à l'époque : parce que j'étais consternée par ce qu'on enseignait aux enfants dans les écoles. Quand t'es assise dans une classe, la seule personne autochtone, et que tu lis dans les livres qu'on est des 'sauvages' venus scalper les pauvres gens qui s'installaient ici, que notre langue était celle de Satan, ça me révoltait. Je me demandais : 'Qu'est-ce que je peux faire pour qu'aucun autre enfant n'entende ça ?'"
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"Notre histoire doit être documentée et un des meilleurs moyens d'y arriver est via le film. Ne l'oublions pas, le film a cette faculté de bien voyager à travers le monde."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

"Nous étions la seule famille indienne [à Trois-Rivières]. Toute mon enfance, je me suis fait battre, insulter, cracher dessus. Après je n'ai eu qu'une envie : combattre l'injustice."
-- Alanis Obomsawin (source)

Quotes about Alanis Obomsawin

"[Alanis Obomsawin's] films are often powerful indictments of the Canadian state's Aboriginal policies. As a series, they have become a significant record of the land claims battles and other social and political struggles of the past three and a half decades. The Obomsawin films participate in, and are acts of representation of, a dialogue within the Canadian state about the status and plight of Aboriginal peoples."
-- Zoë Druick (source)

"Alanis Obomsawin has had a long career as singer, writer, and storyteller, promoting the history and culture of her people. [...] After being seen in a television profile, Alanis, she was invited by the National Film Board to act as a consultant and has since divided her time between filmmaking and performing."
-- Jack C. Ellis, Betsy A. Mclane (source)

"[Alanis Obomsawin] appears in all of her films, seated on a picnic bench interviewing subjects, standing in a cluster of reporters, or barricaded behind the lines during a military battle. Her presence on the screen confirms her intimate connection to the subject matter, so while observational documentaries may labor to elide the filmmaker's presence, Obomsawin intentionally foregrounds it."
-- Jennifer L. Gauthier (source)

"Over the course of her remarkable career, [Alanis] Obomsawin—one of only three remaining staff documentary filmmakers at the NFB—has moved from the margins to the centre of institutional power in Canada. While her work is now officially embraced by the repressive state that she lambastes, Obomsawin has retained the instincts, sensibility and posture of the eternally alienated outsider."
-- Adrian Harewood (source)

"Alanis Obomsawin was born into a dark period of Indigenous history, yet somehow she was able to manifest a light in that darkness. Over the course of many decades, this light has grown from an initial spark to a fire around which many gather to share counsel and hear stories. Or to say it differently: despite beginning her life in a period when the options for social and political agency of Indigenous Peoples were radically and systematically foreclosed, Obomsawin has managed to consistently create and access public platforms to advance her peoples' concerns and tell their stories."
-- Richard William Hill, Hila Peleg (source)

"Her films have fundamentally altered the way in which the cause of First Peoples has been communicated to non-Native Canadians. She has been successful in altering common perceptions, both about the ability of Native communities to take charge of their destinies and about the urgency of institutional change."
-- Zuzana Pick (source)

"[Alanis Obomsawin's] work demystifies notions of disinterested observation in cinéma direct by inscribing her presence in the film, as narrator and subject. [...] Her work subverts the objectifying tendencies of the social documentary by revealing a heartfelt respect for the past and present of the people she has filmed."
-- Zuzana Pick (source)

"For more than five decades, Alanis has asserted an uncompromising, fierce, and unprecedented cinematic space for Indigenous perspectives, faces, and places. Her films have elevated our histories, our struggles, and our aspirations, and in so doing have given us strength. She does this not just out of a quest for what is right and good but out of love for her people— and not only for those who are alive today, but also for those who have passed on and for those not yet born. Alanis is a living embodiment of the truth that colonization has not beaten us, that the genocide against Indigenous children did not eradicate our cultures, and that the hopes and dreams of Indigenous people can and will be realized."
-- Jason Ryle (source)

"Alanis [Obomsawin] has been an activist all her life, not enamoured by expansive rhetoric but given to straight talk. Her disappointment with the slowness of the government to act on pious promises is legendary. Her example inspires the young, who are especially impatient to create a just society. This has been the task of all great poets in history. Alanis brings poetry to documentary film, where it is always belonged."
-- Robert Verrall (source)

"We were about to make a film on a remote Indian reserve [in 1967], and felt clueless about how to proceed. A friend of mine [...] had seen a documentary film on the CBC about Alanis. [...] A group of us met her and talked about her views on film. And that's when she said, 'Well, I've seen Film Board films dealing with Aboriginal people, and we never hear the people speak.'"
-- Robert Verrall (source)

"One aspect of [Alanis] Obomsawin's cinema that quickly distinguishes it from her contemporaries' is its oddly pared-down form. Her work displays little in the way of stylistic flourish or excess, and usually features explanatory voice-overs that might remind some of dull, pedagogical (NFB?) documentaries of the 1950s. However, this apparently simple aesthetic is peppered with a pronounced subjectivity. Furthermore, Obomsawin's work displays a tendency towards lyricism and massive narrative digressions, both techniques that shatter conventions of documentary realism."
-- Jerry White (source)

Quotes about Alanis Obomsawin [in French]

"Pour les Québécois de ma génération et de celle qui nous a précédés, [le nom d'Alanis Obomsawin] constitue un référent incontournable. On connaît Alanis Obomsawin aujourd'hui surtout pour ses films documentaires sans équivoque — près d'une vingtaine — mettant en relief les réalités sociales et politiques des peuples autochtones au Canada; les plus vieux se souviendront aussi de prestations remarquées comme chanteuse engagée ou comme invitée à la télévision au cours des années soixante et soixante-dix [...]."
-- Daniel Salée (source)

"Nous devions tourner un film sur une réserve autochotone éloignée [en 1967], et nous ne savions pas par où commencer. Un de mes amis [...] avait vu un documentaire à Radio-Canada sur Mme Obomsawin. [...] Nous l'avons recontrée et nous avons parlé de son point de vue sur les films. Et alors elle a dit 'Vous savez, j'ai vu plein de documentaires de l'ONF sur les peuples autochtones, et ils n'ont jamais la parole dans vos films.'"
-- Robert Verrall (source)

For QUOTES about a specific film by Alanis Obomsawin, please see:   Christmas at Moose Factory    Amisk    Mother of Many Children    Incident at Restigouche    Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child    Poundmaker's Lodge: A Healing Place    No Address    Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance    My Name Is Kahentiiosta    Spudwrench: Kahnawake Man    Rocks at Whiskey Trench    Is the Crown at War with Us?    Waban-Aki : peuple du soleil levant    The People of the Kattawapiskak River    Trick or Treaty?    We Can't Make the Same Mistake Twice    Our People Will Be Healed    Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger    Honour to Senator Murray Sinclair    Bill Reid Remembers   

Notes about Alanis Obomsawin

(sources)

Bibliography for Alanis Obomsawin

Section 1: Publications by Alanis Obomsawin

Section 2: Publications about Alanis Obomsawin

Books

Book Chapters

Brief Sections of Books

Journal Articles

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Documentaries

Web Sites

Section 3: Publications about the Films of Alanis Obomsawin

Christmas at Moose Factory (1971)

Book Chapters

Brief Sections of Books

Amisk (1977)

Book Chapters

Brief Sections of Books

Mother of Many Children (1977)  (also known as: "Mère de tant d'enfants")

Book Chapters

Brief Sections of Books

Incident at Restigouche (1984)  (also known as: "Les événements de Restigouche")

Book Chapters

Brief Sections of Books

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child (1986)  (also known as: "Richard Cardinal : le cri d'un enfant métis")

Book Chapters

Brief Sections of Books

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Poundmaker's Lodge: A Healing Place (1987)  (also known as: "La Maison Poundmaker : la voie de la guérison")

Book Chapters

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

No Address (1988)  (also known as: "Sans adresse")

Brief Sections of Books

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Walker (1991)

Book Chapters

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993)  (also known as: "Kanehsatake, 270 ans de résistance")

Books

Book Chapters

Brief Sections of Books

Journal Articles

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Dissertation Chapters

Brief Sections of Dissertations

My Name Is Kahentiiosta (1995)  (also known as: "Je m'appelle Kahentiiosta")

Brief Sections of Books

Spudwrench: Kahnawake Man (1997)  (also known as: "Spudwrench : l'homme de Kahnawake")

Brief Sections of Books

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Rocks at Whiskey Trench (2000)  (also known as: "Pluie de pierres à Whiskey Trench")

Brief Sections of Books

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Is the Crown at War with Us? (2002)  (also known as: "La Couronne cherche-t-elle à nous faire la guerre?")

Book Chapters

Brief Sections of Books

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Our Nationhood (2003)  (also known as: "La survie de nos enfants")

Book Chapters

Brief Sections of Books

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Sigwan (2005)

Book Chapters

Waban-Aki : peuple du soleil levant (2006)  (also known as: "Waban-Aki: People from Where the Sun Rises")

Book Chapters

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Gene Boy Came Home (2007)  (also known as: "Gene Boy revient chez lui")

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

When All the Leaves Are Gone (2010)  (also known as: "Quand toutes les feuilles seront tombées")

Book Chapters

The People of the Kattawapiskak River (2012)  (also known as: "Le peuple de la rivière Kattawapiskak")

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Hi-Ho Mistahey! (2013)

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Trick or Treaty? (2014)  (also known as: "Ruse ou traité?")

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Children's Court Case (2014)

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

We Can't Make the Same Mistake Twice (2016)  (also known as: "On ne peut pas faire deux fois la même erreur")

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Our People Will Be Healed (2017)  (also known as: "Le chemin de la guérison")

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger (2019)  (also known as: "Jordan River Anderson, le messager")

Articles from Newspapers, Magazines, or News Websites

Archival Collections

These archival institutions have holdings related to Alanis Obomsawin or her films:


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