Kanehsatake: 270

Years of Resistance

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Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance is a

1993 feature-length film documentary film
by Alanis Obomsawin, chronicling the
1990 Oka Crisis. Produced by the National
Film Board of Canada, the film won 18
Canadian and international awards,
including the Distinguished Documentary
Achievement Award from the International
Documentary Association and the CITY TV
Award for Best Canadian Feature Film
from the Toronto Festival of Festivals.[1]
 Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
Directed by Alanis Obomsawin

Produced by Wolf Koenig

Colin Neale

Written by Alanis Obomsawin

Starring Alanis Obomsawin

Music by Francis Grandmont

Claude Vendette

Cinematography François Brault

Zoe Dirse

Edited by Yurij Luhovy

Release date 28 January 1993

(Febio Film Festival)

Running time 119 minutes

Country Canada
Language English

Release
Rejected by Mark Starowicz of CBC
Television, the film premiered in England,
instead, on Channel Four. Kanehsatake:
270 Years of Resistance made its North
American premiere at the Toronto Festival
of Festivals.[2]

In his book, Alanis Obomsawin: The Vision

of a Native Filmmaker, film scholar
Randolph Lewis writes:
When the film was released in
1993, the CBC continued its
long-standing neglect of
Obomsawin's work, in this case
arguing that she needed to slice
thirty minutes from the two-
hour film to make room for
commercial breaks. [..] Colin
Neale, the executive producer
who worked with Obomsawin
on the film, rebuffed the
network's demand. [...]
Eventually, public interest in
Kahnesatake overpowered the
 CBC's bureaucratic reluctance,
and the network aired it on
January 31, 1994.[3]

Brian McIlroy, in his chapter on

Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance for
the book The Cinema of Canada, states
that:

It is clear that without

Obomsawin's 1993 film, the
history of Oka circa 1990 would
be dominated by [Prime
Minister Brian] Mulroney's
 assertion, reproduced in the
documentary, that the armed
Mohawks were criminals and
illegally wielding weapons.[4]

Historical significance
This section does not cite any sources.
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In every narrative there is a narrator, a

voice, an author. Unfortunately, this voice
is never truly objective. There is always
some underlying bias, agenda, or
philosophy guiding the perception of the
narrator. As history itself is a narrative, the
viewpoint of the narrator can have a
profound effect on history and its
meanings. This has a particular impact on
those who traditionally have not had a
voice. One such group that has historically
been lacking mainstream representation is
the Native American. The history and
traditions of Native American peoples
have, for the most part, been passed down
through oral traditions. This leaves these
peoples with little written record. On top of
this, indigenous peoples in both the United
States and Canada have been subject to a
great deal of persecution. From being
stripped of their traditional homelands and
sacred sites to being subjected to forced
assimilation through boarding schools,
Native American peoples have been
unable to represent themselves, to share
their stories with the mainstream. Instead
of being able to represent themselves,
indigenous people have historically been
represented to the western world by
outsiders. Outsiders such as
anthropologists, ethnographers, and
others who often emerge from the very
people and social viewpoint that have
benefitted from the oppression of
indigenous peoples. This has led to
ethnographic documentaries that, in their
attempt to explore another culture, end up
misunderstanding and even exploiting
native cultures. This tends to continue the
mainstream narrative of indigenous
inferiority.

It is in this context that Kanehsatake: 270

Years of Resistance is worth noting in the
history of documentary. This film is
remarkable because of the intent of the
director, an indigenous woman who
approaches documentary in order to
explain more deeply the indigenous
experience from an indigenous
perspective. In Alanis Obomsawin: Vision
of a Native Filmmaker, the author explains
that the goal of all Obomsawin’s work
"whether in singing or storytelling or
filmmaking-has been a fight for inclusion
of our history".

In regard to the Oka issue, this goal of

getting the indigenous narrative out into
the mainstream was of vital importance.
The media landscape concerning the crisis
had profound slant against the indigenous
activists and in support of the Canadian
government response. According to Lewis,
new coverage at the time "often relied on
government press releases and other one-
sided sources." (91). This, combined with
the ridiculous attempt by the CBC to avoid
airing Kanehsatake: 270 Years of
Resistance, shows that not only did the
media not care to get the full story but that
the powers of the time desired to
construct a narrative where the Canadian
government was the hero in order to
maintain the status quo. If it had not been
for the work of Obomsawin and others like
her, it is likely that the Canadian
government would have succeeded in
having their narrative be the only narrative.
It is in this way that Alanis Obomsawin,
through Kanehsatake: 270 Years of
Resistance, avoided having the Oka Crisis
become yet another lost indigenous
historical narrative. In her article
"Redressing Invisibility", Beth Mauldin
points out that documentary film has
become "a modern-day extension of the
Abenaki oral tradition" and a way of
passing down history, beliefs, and culture
to the future. It is for this reason, the
taking of historical self-license for the
benefit of the indigenous peoples of
Canada, that the works of Obomsawin and
particularly Kanehsatake: 270 Years of
Resistance is worth remembering in the
history of documentary film.

Production conditions
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Learn more
The National Film Board of Canada (NFB),
created in 1939 by an act of parliament,
(SOURCE: NFB ARTICLE) has supported
much of Obomsawin’s work and provided
financial backing for Kanehsatake: 270
Years of Resistance. The NFB reports to
the Minister of Canadian Heritage under
the authority of the Parliament of Canada.
The agency, mandated to interpret Canada
to Canadians and other nations globally,
has produced and distributed over 13,000
documentary, animation, alternative drama
and digital media productions. According
to the "Alanis Obomsawin: The Vision of a
Native Filmmaker", Obomsawin was in the
middle of Le Patro, a short film about a
Montreal community center, when she
heard news of the Oka crisis. She dropped
work on the project and went straight to
the NFB with her plan to join the
encampment and begin filming. The NFB
gave her "a cameraman and an assistant,
doing sound herself until another crew
member joined her in the warriors’ camp"
(page 92). (93) For the next seventy-eight
days, Obomsawin and her crew endured
"near battle conditions" and other living
discomforts. According to Lewis, the NFB
repeatedly pleaded with Obomsawin to
leave the encampment to protect her own
safety and that of her crew. The
encampment, even as depicted in the film,
was a warzone with access to essentials
like food and medical treatment being cut
off by the Canadian government. Filming
in these conditions was very taxing on
both Obomsawin and her crew and the
fact that they stayed is a testament to the
commitment the filmmaker had to her
work. The task of shaping a narrative out
of the "over 250 hours of sixteen-
millimeter film" began in the fall of 1991
(95). According to Yurij Luhovy, who edited
the film, "It was a huge project. Just to
give you an idea of the magnitude, it took
me six months just to view the raw
footage and mark the best elements of the
film."(95) Alanis Obomsawin was
screenwriter, director and narrator of the
award-winning documentary. The NFB has
extensive distribution channels. The board
releases its productions to libraries and
universities throughout the Canadian
provinces and territories, schedules
theatre screenings through its centers in
Toronto and Montreal as well as the
Aboriginal Peoples Television Network
(APTN). The documentary is easily
accessible for online streaming at the
NFB.ca Screening Room as well as
through other leading digital media video
portals like YouTube, smartphone apps,
Facebook and Twitter (However, many of
these digital medium were not available
when the film debuted). According to
Lewis, this model of distribution is "a
worthy goal in Obomsawin’s mind" as the
primary goal in all her work is to "fight for
inclusion of our history in the educational
system".

See also
Ellen Gabriel

References
1. Awards list, NFB Web page
2. Mazurkewich, Karen (1993-09-13).
"Kanehsatake 270 Years of
Resistance" . Playback. Brunico
 Communications. Retrieved
2009-01-26.
3. Lewis, Randolph (2006). Alanis
Obomsawin: The Vision of a Native
Filmmaker . Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press. p. 109.
4. McIlroy, Brian (2006). "Kanehsatake:
270 Years of Resistance". The
Cinema of Canada . London:
Wallflower. p. 180.

External links
Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
on IMDb
 Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance ,
Watch on-line at NFB.ca
"Kanehsatake: 270 Years of
Resistance" , Canadian Film
Encyclopedia
Kanehsatake 270 Years of Resistance ,
Canadian Women Film Director's
Database
Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
(The Oka Crisis) (1993) , on archive.org

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