Legendary Obomsawin to appear at Vancouver International Film Festival

Abenaki filmmaker and musician Alanis Obomsawin will take the stage as part of the Live portion of the Vancouver International Film Festival (VIFF) on Oct. 4.

The 92-year-old will be performing portions of her Bush Lady album originally released in 1988 and re-released in 2018.

“There was a whole long story around how the initial record was made and she wasn’t happy with the results and reclaimed it and rerecorded it herself,” said Jarrett Martineau, the VIFF Live curator who is a member of Frog Lake First Nation in Alberta. “Then there were a few copies in circulation and have been out in the wilderness for a number of years and it kind of gained a little bit of a status.”

Obomsawin, who was born in 1932, has been a profound force in creating a space for Indigenous issues through her writing, singing and directing documentaries.

She has directed 57 films, had a singing career, created artwork and advocated for education of people regarding the mistreatment of Indigenous people.

“I started very early because at first my big battle was education,” Obomsawin had told Windspeaker in a 2023 interview. “I was very upset from the ways that they were teaching the history of this country. It started like that because I suffered a lot at that time. I was very young, and it was very difficult and so I figured out a way to produce changes and I’ve succeeded.” Obomsawin added that these stories of Indigenous people painted a picture of savages with no morals or religion.

Obomsawin was featured in an exhibit at the Art Museum at the University of Toronto last year titled The Children Have to Hear Another Story, showcasing her dedication to changing the narrative of Indigenous people.

Her many films speak to the hardships people faced, the racism, the bullying, the struggles for rights and recognition, displacement and state-mandated assimilation.

Her work has been a source of inspiration for others to follow their own passion throughout the decades of her career.

In the early 1960s she was a young singer featured in newspapers with not always a positive review.

Throughout her career she has faced numerous roadblocks and criticisms but she never gave up.

She explained how she became a member of the National Film Board of Canada.

“That’s how I was able to make a lot of material, a lot of films for telling the history and with different communities and make sure that people were present in the classroom, their voice and themselves,” she said. “That’s what I fought for this whole time and I’m still doing it.”

Obomsawin’s performance will be only the third time she has performed Bush Lady live. She will be accompanied by an ensemble led by Montreal’s Radwan Moumneh.

In the late 2010s she rereleased Bush Lady performing the recording live only a couple of times.

“I have been chasing her ever since to come do a show in Vancouver,” said Martineau. “This year I had the invitation to curate the live series for the film festival and I thought what a good opportunity it might be. So, I asked her again and miraculously she said yes.”

Martineau said he’s not exactly sure what Obomsawin’s performance will entail.

“She’s going to perform music from Bush Lady and who knows what else,” he said. “That’s kind of the cool thing about this performance. You never know what you’re going to get. So, there may be other stories and songs and poems and things woven into the performance.”

Obomsawin will perform during the first half of the concert. Jeremy Dutcher, a member of Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick will perform during the second half.

Dutcher is an award-winning composer who blends songs from his community with neoclassical, jazz and pop.

The debut from the two-spirit composer, titled Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, was released in 2018, earning the Polaris Music Prize and a Juno for Indigenous Music Album of the Year.

Dutcher also received the Polaris Music Prize this year for his album titled Motewolonuwok.

“Jeremy is fresh off of winning his second Polaris Music Prize which is the big music prize in the country,” said Martineau, adding the two performers have “a lot of mutual love and respect for one another. Part of the reason for putting them together is to create the opportunity for this kind of intergenerational conversation to happen between them.”

In addition to the VIFF Live performance, Obomsawin will be joined by Michif/Métis artist Amanda Strong as part of the VIFF Talks series on Oct. 5. During that talk there will be a sneak peek to Obomsawin’s latest short film My Friend the Green Horse.

For more information or for tickets to the event visit visit Jeremy Dutcher & Alanis Obomsawin | Vancouver International Film Festival (viff.org)