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By Barb Nahwegahbow
Windspeaker.com Contributor
TORONTO
Winning awards never gets boring said internationally-celebrated filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin.
“It’s always so touching and it’s always so generous. And it’s not just for me. It’s for what I represent, all those films and it’s for all the people in those films. For me, that’s where the value is, recognizing the people and their voices.”
Obomsawin was in Toronto in early January to accept the Technicolor Clyde Gilmour Award from the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA) at its annual gala. When the award was announced in November, association President Brian D. Johnson described Obomsawin as a significant architect of Canadian cinema and culture who has created a lifetime of movies that matter.
“This honour is long overdue,” he said. Obomsawin has made 50 documentary films. Her most recent film, “We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice”, premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival and deals with Canada’s discriminatory treatment of First Nations children.
The award was made even more special for Obomsawin because with the award came the opportunity for her to designate a young filmmaker to receive $50,000 in Technicolor services. She selected 32-year-old Métis filmmaker Amanda Strong for the $50,000 award.
There were 300 people in the film industry that gave Obomsawin a lengthy standing ovation when she made her way to the stage to accept her award.
Jesse Wente, director of Film Programmes at TIFF Bell Lightbox, presented the award to Obomsawin but first acknowledged the Indigenous people who occupied the land known as Toronto.
Cheers and applause erupted when Wente thanked, “the original keepers of this land for hosting us here.” Wente, whose family comes from Serpent River First Nation said, “We are very generous people so my ancestors welcome your ancestors.”
“Alanis is an artist, a storyteller, a trail blazer, a leader, a listener, an activist, a mentor, a warrior, a hero, an inspiration,” said Wente. “It has been my honour for many years to call her friend. She’s devoted her life and her work to the cause of Indigenous people, giving voice to the voiceless and she’s stood up to the powers that would silence us. She is why there’s a global Indigenous community at all. She is the reason I and so many others do what we do and on their behalf, I cannot thank her enough.” Wente has presented Obomsawin with several awards in the past, he said, “and each time, I can’t think of a more deserving recipient.”
“I wish there was magic and my father could come back here,” said Obomsawin as she received her award. When she was told she could transfer a grant of $50,000 to a young filmmaker, “I knew right away who it would be,” she said, “and it is Amanda Strong, a young animator.”
When she heard the voices in Strong’s film, “Four Faces of the Moon”, Obomsawin said, “the sound made me feel like I was in some Métis house, in their kitchen and they were all talking and I could hear and feel them so well. And what’s amazed me is that Amanda is really trying to tell the history of her people, the Métis people and it’s coming out of her pores. I think she’s going to come up with something really great.”
Earlier in the evening, Amanda Strong confessed she was really intimidated as she and Alanis did a number of red carpet interviews. This was her first gala, she said. But her nervousness was not evident when she took the stage to accept her award from Obomsawin. Strong was composed and gracious as she thanked the Critics Association, Technicolor and especially Alanis for choosing her.
“It’s not easy being female and an Indigenous female in the animation and film industry,” said Strong. “I’ve been at NFB [National Film Board] for three years and watching Alanis and learning from her and seeing the power she has in that building, seeing the work she does, the justice she brings to our stories and our people. I only hope that I can do a fraction of what she’s given to Indigenous people and film.”
In an interview with Obonsawin and Strong, Obomsawin again said how impressed she was with Strong’s film.
“The sound of the voices, in Cree or Ojibway and in French and English, I just felt like I was having a conversation. It was so intimate and so real because I know those accents. It was really, really wonderful and I just thought, this is important, it needs to be seen by the world.” Scenes in the film reminded her of so many things she experienced when she was growing up, said Obomsawin.
Amanda Strong said the animated film, “Four Faces of the Moon”, is very personal. It’s about her journey of tracing her own family’s Métis roots. In the film, she goes back in time to meet her ancestors.
“I wanted to do the story for the last eight years and it’s in the last two years that it’s come together and connecting it with the buffalo and history.”
She has traced her family to Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota. They crossed into Winnipeg and the Red River area, she said. She visited Turtle Mountain a few years ago and a woman she spoke to claimed her as family. Her grandmother who is in her film grew up in St. Boniface and later moved to a Toronto suburb.
“She’s been my inspiration,” said Strong of the woman who is now in her 80s.
The Métis culture is a rich and complicated one, said Strong. “They spoke a lot of different Indigenous languages, we had a responsibility to the land and the animals. We had a lot of connections and trade going on. It was more important for me to connect to that historic resistance and rebellion that happened, because my family is connected to that, as well as to the buffalo hunt and the plans to slaughter the buffalo. At school, you usually learn about Louis Riel, sashes and jigging. I didn’t want any of those things in my film. I wanted to get to the core; the core values.”
Strong has two animated films in the works in the very beginning stages, one about the sasquatch and the other about the Wendigo. As for Obomsawin, she is currently editing a film about Norway House, a community in northern Manitoba. “I’m in love with the place,” she said about Norway House, “especially with the school. Everything is about the children there and there’s so much love there.”
Then there’s part two of, “We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice”. Cindy Blackstock of the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society will be back in court in March because the federal government has not complied with the Human Rights Tribunal ruling in favour of First Nations children. Obomsawin will be there filming. “They won,” she said. “But what did they win and where is it?”