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120 minutes
Grades 10-Adult
1994
Closed Captioned
Produced by the National Film Board of Canada, A film by
Alanis Obomsawin
A feature-length, multi-award winning documentary by Native
American filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin set in the thick of the
armed confrontation between Native American Mohawks and
Canadian government forces during the 1990 standoff in the
Mohawk village of Kanehsatake near the village of Oka in
Quebec. The two-and-a-half month ordeal received brief
national attention when the Mohawk warriors of Kahnawake, in
support of their brothers from nearby Kanehsatake, temporarily
held the busy Mercier Bridge leading to Montreal, in an effort
to bring world attention to the situation.
Starting with plans to construct a luxury housing development
and expand a private golf course into the Pines, part of
Mohawk
Nation's land, tensions rose quickly and tempers flared as
Mohawks were once again fighting for their sovereignty. After
a police officer was killed in a raid to expel the Mohawks
from the Pines, the situation spiraled out of control. In
scene after startling scene the drama escalates as the Quebec
police are replaced by units from the Canadian army.
With few exceptions journalists covering the crisis either
evacuated or were forcibly removed. Alanis Obomsawin spent
the
final weeks of the standoff without a crew, shooting on video
and using the slow speed on her sound recorder to stretch out
her limited supply of audio tape.
Obomsawin's detailed portrayal of the Mohawk community places
the Oka crisis within the larger context of Mohawk land rights
dating back to 1535 when France claimed the site of present-
day Montreal which had been the Mohawk village of Hochelaga.
Her evocative dimension of the conflict, exploring
the fierce conviction of the Mohawks and the communal spirit
that enabled them to stand firm.
Awards: Distinguished Documentary Achievement, International
Documentary Association Awards, Los Angeles; Special Jury
Award, San Francisco International Film Festival; Best
Canadian Feature Film, Festival of Festivals, Toronto; Special
Jury Award, Amiens International Film Festival;
Best Documentary Feature, American Indian Motion Picture
Awards; NFB Feature Documentary Award, Vancouver International
Film Festival; International Film Festivals: Sundance,
Margaret Mead, Leeds, Santa Barbara, Amsterdam Documentary,
HongKong, Brisbane, Hawaii, Melbourne, Montevideo, Haifa,
Munich Documentary, London Environmental, Seattle Human
Rights,
INPUT '94, Montreal, St. John's Women's, Auckland, Wellington,
Vermont
- "The film transports the viewer to the barricades and camps,
achieving a powerful immediacy and devastating logic. As each
piece of her story falls deftly into place, we begin to
understand who was fighting, and for what, and above all how
it felt to be there. Obomsawin avoids the pitfalls of
romanticizing Mohawks and demonizing whites..In short,
Obomsawin has documented sympathetically yet responsibly, and
from a unique perspective what history may judge to be the
most significant event to take place on Canadian soil since
the Second World War." The (Toronto) Globe and Mail
NATIVE AMERICAN RIGHTS, GOVERNMENT, CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
ISBN: 07722-0491-8
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