Alanis Obomsawin Free Online
by Staff
(October 15, 2019 – Montréal, QC) The remarkable cinematic legacy of world-renowned filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin is more accessible than ever at the National Film Board of Canada’s online screening room, NFB.ca. More than 20 films have recently been added to the collection, bringing the total to more than 40 works spanning over a half-century of storytelling and activism. All are online and available for free streaming.
A member of the Abenaki Nation and one of Canada’s most distinguished filmmakers, Obomsawin has devoted herself to chronicling the lives and concerns of First Nations people and exploring issues of importance to all—with a particular focus on the well-being of children.
Her concern for the lives of young people is on vivid display in award-winning works now available online for the first time, including her uplifting Our People Will Be Healed, taking viewers inside a unique school in the Cree community of Norway House, north of Winnipeg, where students develop a sense of pride in who they are and a hope for the future, as well as her moving Hi-Ho Mistahey!, chronicling “Shannen’s Dream,” a national campaign to provide equitable access to education in safe and suitable schools for First Nations children.
There are also classics from deeper inside Obomsawin’s incredible body of the work, with short films from the 1970s like Amisk and her early series L’il’wata and Manawan.
These newly featured works join landmark films already online, such as Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child, Incident at Restigouche and more.
Ms. Obomsawin’s latest work is Jordan River Anderson, The Messenger—her 53rd film, completed in the 52nd year of her legendary career—which is being acclaimed at film festivals across Canada this fall. In addition to being a filmmaker and activist, Alanis Obomsawin is an accomplished visual artist and performer whose work was featured this past summer at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. She was also recently named a Companion of the Order of Canada—its highest honour.
Already home to an unparalleled collection of films by Indigenous directors via its Indigenous Cinema webpage, NFB.ca today becomes an even more indispensable destination for powerful, groundbreaking Indigenous cinema.
