The People of the Kattawapiskak River: A free public screening of the new film by Alanis Obomsawin about Attawapiskat
The People of the Kattawapiskak River: A free public screening of the new film by Alanis Obomsawin about Attawapiskat
There is accounting, and then there is accountability–accountability understood in terms of legal obligations and democratic answerability. Alanis Obomsawin’s new documentary on Attawapiskat re-tells the story of the housing crisis in this James Bay Cree community through footage from House of Commons debates, interviews with residents and with Chief Theresa Spence, analysis of treaty obligations under Treaty 9, and the recent Federal Court trial ending in the decision that the federal government’s move to send a third party manager into the community was unlawful and unreasonable.
Obomsawin is the director of over 30 films including Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993), a documentary about the 1990 Mohawk uprising in Kanehsatake and Oka, which has won 18 international awards. She was present in Attawapiskat in 2011 when the housing crisis on the reserve came to national attention. Her new documentary intervenes in current debates about who is accountable for the conditions on this reserve, and many others like it in Canada.
“Obomsawin’s main objective is to make us see the people of Attawapiskat differently. The emphasis, ultimately, is not so much on looking as on listening–the first stage in changing the conversation, or in making one possible.”–Robert Everett-Green, The Globe & Mail
Event sponsored by the Dean of FASS, the Department of English, and the Centre for Aboriginal Culture and Education.
Please come to a free public screening of the new film by Alanis Obomsawin about Attawapiskat
Monday, January 28, 5pm
River Building 2200