FREE imagineNATIVE SCREENINGS AND RECEPTION at the NFB MEDIATHEQUE!
WOMEN WHO ARE SHAPING OUR WORLD
featuring
Alanis Obomsawin’s Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
Tracey’s Deer’s Club Native
NFB Mediatheque, 150 John Street (at Richmond Street)


imagineNATIVE and the National Film Board are proud to present two outstanding works by ground-breaking Aboriginal filmmakers, Alanis Obomsawin’s now iconic Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993), and Tracey Deer’s Club Native (2007). Each filmmaker’s relationship to their subject infuses these works with sensitivity and an intimacy that is without equal. These documentaries are testaments to how film can shape the landscape of political and social issues, and teach us important lessons about the history and contemporary reality of the land we call Canada. These screenings are FREE and open to the public!

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
Thursday Oct. 16th: 10:30am & 1:30pm
Followed by a Reception for Alanis Obomsawin at 3:30pm
FREE and open to the public
Director: Alanis Obomsawin
Canada · 119 min · 1993 · Beta SP

In the summer of 1990, an armed stand-off began between the Mohawk people of Kanehsatake and Oka, the Québec police and the Canadian army that attracted international attention. When police stormed the Mohawk barricades and a Corporal was killed, the situation intensified with the seizure of the Mercier bridge and riots breaking out among the residents of Chateauguay. As the helicopters circled overhead, bullets whizzed by at eye level and the hostility escalated, eventually almost all journalists were either evacuated or forcibly removed. Director Alanis Obomsawin remained without a crew documenting this watershed moment in Canadian history from behind the Mohawk barricades. After a grueling 78 days behind the barricades, Obomsawin emerged with a landmark film that was seen around the world and changed the face of international Indigenous land claims. With powerful immediacy, she takes us to the frontlines of the confrontation, presents a profound portrait of the Mohawks’ unyielding spirit, and delves straight to the heart of the age-old struggles between the colonial establishments of Canada and the first peoples of this land. This widely-acclaimed film went on to win 18 international awards.

Club Native
Friday Oct. 17th: 10:30am & 1:30pm
And in the Atelier at 7:00pm
FREE and open to the public
Director: Tracey Deer
Canada · 78 min · 2007 · Digital Beta

For the Mohawk people living on the Kahnawake reserve just outside Montreal, there are two unspoken and unquestioned rules that community lives by: do not marry a white person and do not have children with a white person. Those who break these rules may suffer the loss of their official membership to the community including their right to live there, the loss of their childrens’ membership and the risk of being shunned by others for having betrayed their Mohawk Nation. In this inspiring and ground-breaking documentary, four brave Mohawk women reveal the devastating effects of “marrying out” of their nation, the conflict between love and cultural preservation, and having the courage to follow your own heart.