Obomsawin, Alanis, b. 1932
Biography
Alanis Obomsawin was born in 1932 in New Hampshire. She is of Abenaki origin and spent her childhood on the Odanak Reserve and at Trois-Rivieres, both in Quebec, Canada. Obomsawin left Trois-Rivieres at the age of twenty-one and moved to Montreal in the late 1950s, where she became part of a circle of artist primarily as a singer and storyteller instilling pride in Native oral histories. In 1965, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation made a documentary on her performances and her social activism for their "Telescope" program. Afterwards she worked on assisted on documentaries on activists for the National Film Board but by 1967, she was working on her own projects. Her first film "Christmas at Moose Factory was released in 1971. Other films by Obomsawin include "Mother of Many Children" (1977), "Canada Vignettes" (1979-1980), "Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Metis Child" (1986), "No Address" (1988), "Walker" (1991), "My name is Kahentiiosta" (1995) and "Wban-Aki: People from Where the Sun Rises" (2006). In 1988 she produced the film "A Way of Learning" with the Native American Council of Dartmouth College and in conjunction with professor Bruce Duthu about the experience of Aboriginal students in the Native American Program at Dartmouth.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
Native American students at Dartmouth College film collection
Alanis Obomsawin (b. 1932), artist and filmmaker. The collection contains reels of sound and images as well as negatives for her documentary "A Way of Learning" about the experiences of Aboriginal students at Dartmouth College.