Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance - Production Conditions

Production Conditions

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 work on 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 the 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 first 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”.