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Retrospective for Abenaki filmmaker, singer and activist Alanis Obomsawin now on display in Montreal

An older color photo of a woman with long black hair in braids looking into a video camera while standing outside along a railroad track. There's blue sky in the background
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
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Courtesy
Odanak First Nation Abenaki citizen Alanis Obomsawin is one of the most acclaimed Indigenous filmmakers in the world. A retrospective exhibition of her work across six decades is now on display in Montreal, at the Musée d'art contemporain.

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."

A photo of a little girl in a red dress with ribbons sewn along the hem, sleeping on pine boughs.
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
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Courtesy
A still from Alanis Obomsawin's 2005 film Sigwan, which was filmed at the Odanak First Nation reserve.

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.

Have questions, comments or tips? Send us a message.

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Elodie is a reporter and producer for Vermont Public. She previously worked as a multimedia journalist at the Concord Monitor, the St. Albans Messenger and the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, and she's freelanced for The Atlantic, the Christian Science Monitor, the Berkshire Eagle and the Bennington Banner. In 2019, she earned her MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Southern New Hampshire University.