Renowned Abenaki filmmaker, singer and activist Alanis Obomsawin now has a retrospective exhibition on display in Montreal.
Obomsawin, who was born in New Hampshire and who is a citizen of Odanak First Nation, has been making films for nearly 60 years with the National Film Board of Canada.
She came into filmmaking by way of singing, songwriting and storytelling. And as she told Vermont Public in an interview last year, her decades of work aims to tell the truth about Indigenous peoples in the education system, and to dispel racism.
"I thought the children were hearing a wrong story — lies," Obomsawin said in 2023. "If they heard another story, they would be different because children are not born like that."
She told CBC News last week, "I want to say our people are beautiful. They're spiritual, they have so much to say. Just watch them walk, watch the old people telling a story."
Her exhibition is called “The Children Have to Hear Another Story.” It’s already been shown in Berlin, Vancouver and Toronto, and now it’s in Montreal, at the Musée d'art contemporain (MAC) in Place Ville Marie. It includes archival documents, drawings, masks, engravings, monotypes and 13 of Obomsawin's films.
Among them is her 2005 film Sigwan, which was filmed at the Odanak reserve. It tells the story of a little girl who is rejected by her community, and she befriends a group of human-like bears. Both the bears and the girl then connect with the community.
Attached to the exhibition is a space for reflection called "Thontenonhkwa'tsherano'onhnha — The Medicine Room," created in honor of children by Katsitsanoron Dumoulin-Bush.
There are also various workshops, conversations and tours available to visitors.
Among the first viewers of "The Children Have to Hear Another Story" in Montreal have been elected officials from Odanak First Nation and students from Kiuna, a college for First Nations students located on the Odanak reserve.
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