Indigenous Success Stories: First Nations

The IJA conference took place in Oklahoma City from July 25-27

CBC Indigenous: Over 400 Indigenous journalists from around the world gathered in Oklahoma City, Okla., last week for the Indigenous Journalists Association (IJA) conference, which celebrates Indigenous storytellers, and promotes diverse Indigenous cultures and languages.

Journalists were given awards for their hard work and dedication to telling Indigenous stories on Saturday, where they were celebrated at the IJA media awards ceremony. 

Three CBC Indigenous reporters won awards from the association. 

Janell Henry, who works with CBC Indigenous in Winnipeg, got a first-place award in the radio/podcast category for her story on rez radio. This story told the importance of rez radio in a Manitoba community that uses it for all their updates, and keeps them connected.

• AUDIOThe history of Rez Radio in Manitoba

Jacqueline McKay works with CBC Indigenous in Vancouver. She got a second-place award in the television — best feature category for her story on Sinixt’s exclusion in Columbia River Treaty negotiations. This story highlighted the Sinixt’s struggle with being removed from their traditional territories that were on the Canadian side of the border, and not having any right to negotiate. 

• Sinixt want a say in Columbia River Treaty renegotiations

Candace Maracle’s story about the overdose crisis in Six Nations nabbed third place in the print/online best health coverage category. This story discusses Ganohkwasra, a 29-bed shelter and counselling and outreach services that helps people who are struggling with addiction. 

• Residents, service providers work to address overdoses in Six Nations

Susan Bell from Cree Media CBC won three awards in the categories of print/online — best feature story; print/online —best longform/magazine story; and print/online — AARP Elder coverage award for the stories “Honour walk held for Indigenous organ donor,” “Healing footsteps” and “Cree elder has been playing the fiddle for 70 years.” Two of those awards were shared with Marjorie Kitty.

• Honour walk held for Indigenous organ donor
• Cree elder has been playing fiddle for 70 years — and opened his grandson’s wedding with 1st tune he learned

CBC’s Unreserved received three awards in the categories of best feature story for “Search the Landfill,” best two-spirit coverage for “Two-spirit artivists share two ways of seeing the world” and general excellence for “Healing after Harm: The Buffy Sainte-Marie investigation.” 

A full list of the winners is posted on the Indigenous Journalists Association website.

The Oklahoma City location gave attendees the opportunity to learn about the city and Indigenous territories that were in Oklahoma during the conference, which was held July 25-27.

The next location for the 2025 IJA conference has not been officially announced yet.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Darla Ponace

Darla Ponace is a Saulteaux woman from Zagime Anishinabek First Nations. She started as an associate producer in the Indigenous Pathways program at CBC. She is currently working with CBC Indigenous Saskatchewan. You can email her at darla.ponace@cbc.ca with story ideas. 

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NationTalk: ANISHINABEK NATION TERRITORY – Journalist Rick Garrick, member of Lac Seul First Nation, has been selected for this year’s Debwewin Citation for excellence in journalism and storytelling.

“For many years, we have all seen and read the work created by Rick Garrick through several publications, including the Anishinabek News,” states Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Linda Debassige. “He demonstrates knowledge and passion through stories and photos of resilience throughout all of his work. His commitment to Indigenous people and specifically throughout the Anishinabek Nation territory, provides readers with in-depth knowledge of issues, successes, and facts that are very real and dear to us all. His contributions continue to be valuable to all of us. We are both honoured and excited to present Rick with this reward for all of his inspiring work.”

Rick Garrick, who was raised on the land on Lac Seul during his childhood, is an award-winning freelance journalist who lives in Thunder Bay, Ont., with his partner and son. He has been writing stories and shooting photographs for Anishinabek News, the Great Lakes Pow Wow Guide, and Wawatay News since the early 2000s after graduating from Print Journalism at Cambrian College in 2002. He mainly covers stories about Indigenous people from Northern Ontario, and has also covered stories from all over Anishinabek Nation territory.

He previously received the Debwewin Citation in 2003 and will be awarded the 2024 Debwewin Citation this year.

The Debwewin Citation is the first major award intended to recognize and encourage excellence in reporting or storytelling about Indigenous issues by First Nations and other writers. A selection committee appointed by the Anishinabek Nation Communications Department solicits nominations for the award, whose name reflects the Anishinaabemowin words for “truth” and means “to speak from the heart”.

Cinematographer Ed Regan was the 2023 recipient. The award has been presented 15 times since first given to Toronto Star journalist Peter Edwards in 2002 for his extensive body of work related to the death of unarmed land defender Dudley George on Sept. 6, 1995, at the former Ipperwash Provincial Park. Since then, it has honoured journalists and those who use their storytelling skills to create greater awareness about First Nations people across Anishinabek Nation territory.

Previous Debwewin Citation Recipients:

• Maurice Switzer, founder of the Debwewin Citations of Alderville First Nation, 2022 recipient
• Catherine Murton Stoehr, freelance Anishinabek News journalist, 2021 recipient
• Vince and Anita Chechok, now retired radio programmers for the REZ 91 radio station in Wasauksing First Nation, 2019 recipients
• Waubgeshig Rice of Wasauksing First Nation, author, and former journalist, 2014 recipient
• The late CBC reporter Jody Porter, 2013 recipient for ongoing coverage of First Nations issues in the Thunder Bay area
• Laura Robinson, 2010 recipient for Olympic coverage of Indigenous culture
• Anishinabek recipients have included renowned late Anishinabek author Basil Johnston from Cape Croker; columnist Bud Whiteye from Walpole Island; and former writer/broadcaster Jennifer Ashawasagai from Henvey Inlet

Honourees of the award include Greg Plain, the late Jody Porter, Mark Bonokoski, and Perry McLeod-Shabogesic. The 2004 honouree, Lynn Johnston, introduced First Nations people and places into For Better or For Worse, her cartoon strip carried in over 22 countries.

Shuvinai Ashoona. Photo by Kitra Cahana. Courtesy of West Baffin Cooperative. And Greg Staats by Greg Staats, auto portrait.

Windspeaker.com: Greg Staats, Skarù:reˀ [Tuscarora] from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory in Ontario, and Inuk artist Shuvinai Ashoona from Kinngait, Nunavut are 2024 Governor General award winners in visual and media arts.

Both Staats and Ashoona credit their Indigenous cultures as the inspiration for their visual creations.

Ashoona, the second artist from the West Baffin Cooperative to receive the award, credits her sister for giving her the nudge to start drawing more than two decades ago at 33 years of age. Ashoona has since created many mixed media works depicting Inuit culture from her own experiences and surroundings.

Her work has garnered accolades, including the Gershon Iskowitz Prize in 2018. She was also one of two special mentions by the jury of the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2022.

Much of her artistry reflects the beauty that surrounds her in the north, “the mountains, or the town, or the workers,” Ashoona said.

She is thankful for the recognition and is proud to be one of the award winners.

“(There are) great artists all around… and I’m grateful for being one of them,” she said.

Staats is also pleased to be recognized for the work he has done since he began in photography in 1985.

He is a founding member of the Native Indian/Inuit Photographer’s Association and was awarded the 1999 Duke & Duchess of York Prize in Photography from the Canada Council for the Arts. In 2021 he received the Toronto Arts Foundation’s inaugural Indigenous Artist Award. 

At the age of 61, though his subjects and presentation may have changed, his keen eye and ability to evoke feeling through the lens has not.

“I call it, or we call it, Indigenous intuition and so, very similarly to photographic intuition we develop as photographers, we develop our own visual language as well. So there’s a parallel with my visual language and my Indigenous knowledge,” he said.

Staats’ photography, video and installation art showcases elements of symbolic importance to his community.

Landscapes, portraits, historical artifacts and sequence photography are all captured in his work.

“When I transitioned from straight photography to installation photography, to installation with objects … I brought all those transferable skills that I had as a photographer,” said Staats.

“Instead of seeing a piece of paper as the print, you can see the wall as the image and you can start placing things on the wall; objects with photographs, with text, to get an overall feeling from an installation.”

By combining his artistic skills with the knowledge he has gained from his ancestors, Staats is able to convey messages and stories in a unique format.

“As a photographer we develop an intuition after a while that draws you to subject matter that you keep repeating and repeating,” he explained. “So, I usually take photographs of landscapes… (or) I use archival materials, my grandfather’s diaries, old newspaper clippings and I’ll incorporate those as well into what I call a mnemonic. So that all comes from the idea of wampum and oral tradition.”

He explained he will take questions to knowledge keepers and asks them to explain them. This could include the meaning of a word and its orientation, or the significance of certain areas in his community. From there he creates images that convey the stories and captures the feelings of his home or from upstate New York.

“So it depends on what I want to say that photography can’t say and sculpture and installation can,” he added.

All of the artists will travel to the Governor General’s residence in Ottawa this fall to officially receive their awards.

Ashoona and Staats were among six recipients of this year’s Governor General awards. The others are Barbara Astman, Dominique Blain, Don Ritter and Métis filmmaker Marjorie Beaucage (see our story here https://windspeaker.com/news/windspeaker-news/filmmaker-seen-awarded-her-community-commitment).

“Each one of the eight winners of the 2024 Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts is a visionary in their own right,” said Michelle Chawla, director and chief executive officer of the Canada Council for the Arts, which created the awards program with the Governor General of Canada in 1999.

“Through a unique, evocative and bold view of the world, these artists have succeeded in awakening new perspectives, contributing to public debate and propelling society forward. My congratulations to each one of them for their contributions to visual and media arts and for continuously challenging and inspiring audiences to reimagine what is possible.”

Local Journalism Initiative Reporters are supported by a financial contribution made by the Government of Canada.

Tantoo Cardinal learned to do a lot with comparatively little in an almost five-decade career. Now she’s receiving the acclaim she deserves, including induction into Canada’s Walk of Fame.

By Luke Savage Special to the Star

This story contains spoilers for “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

The Toronto Star: Shortly before the halfway point of Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Tantoo Cardinal’s Lizzie Q dies in the company of her two surviving daughters, Mollie (Lily Gladstone) and Reta (JaNae Collins).

Lizzie’s eyes close then open again as she looks upon three unnamed figures in the afterlife. They are initially stoic in their expressions, but the scene quickly dissolves into joy; even as her daughters weep beside her body, Lizzie and her hosts exchange smiles so warm and incandescent that they seem to transcend the earthly grief felt by the living.

Lizzie’s death scene, much like the film’s ending, thus achieves something quite remarkable: an unusual coexistence of bottomless sadness and quiet triumph — the latter ultimately enduring even in the face of existential tragedy and rapacious evil.

Based on a 2017 book of the same title by David Grann, “Killers of the Flower Moon” tells the true story of the Osage murders in 1920s Oklahoma, which saw the killing of at least 60 members of the Osage Nation by white settlers hoping to pilfer a share of the tribe’s oil wealth.

Many of the victims were women, married to non-Osage men who sometimes murdered their own wives, in-laws and children in order to inherit lucrative headrights. As Lizzie, Cardinal rarely speaks but carries herself with understated power in every one of her scenes.

Among other things, it’s a performance that requires her to do an awful lot with comparatively little: giving her character dimension and depth mostly through poignant looks and subtle body language rather than verbalized emotion. 

It’s also the kind of performance that Cardinal, 73, has excelled at over her roughly five-decade career as an actor. As the critic Brian D. Johnson once observed, she possesses an astonishing ability to enlarge “even the most compact roles with (sidelong glances) of gravitas and flashes of sardonic wit.”

This quality, in fact, is evident even in conversation. As the two of us speak about her life and career, even Cardinal’s pauses feel imbued with weight and meaning. 

It’s a skill that the actor has likely honed, in part, out of necessity. Throughout the 1980s and ’90s — despite recurring roles on TV shows like the Western drama “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman” and CBC’s “North of 60” — Cardinal often had less screen time to work with in movies, but she invariably made the most of it. (“My characters had no arcs,” as she once put it. “There were only moments.”)

One Hollywood figure who recognized Cardinal’s onscreen potency was Kevin Costner, who reportedly cast her in his Oscar-winning 1990 film “Dances With Wolves” before anyone else. The role of Black Shawl in “Dances” opened the door to other films alongside major stars, notably Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins in 1994’s “Legends of the Fall.” 

This weekend, Cardinal will be added to Canada’s Walk of Fame at a special induction ceremony to mark its 25th anniversary. The honour coincides with a singular moment in her career.

Firmly established as one of North America’s best-known Indigenous actors, her prolific work ethic and versatility onscreen are, albeit belatedly, now receiving the acclaim and attention they so clearly deserve. In recent years she’s had major parts in several films, notably starring in her first ever leading role as Mary Birchbark in Anishinaabe director Darlene Naponse’s 2018 movie “Falls Around Her.” She’ll soon be seen in the Disney-produced miniseries “Echo.” 

At this feted point in her career, Cardinal is introspective in her outlook. “It’s like I stepped onto this shelf or level,” she said, “and I’m looking at a whole new horizon … recognizing where I’ve come from, recognizing the journey and so many of the people that were involved.”

Cardinal’s journey has been a long and challenging one. Of Cree and Métis heritage, she was born in oil-rich Fort McMurray, Alberta, in 1950 and grew up in nearby Anzac where she was raised by her grandmother and mother’s stepfather.

“It’s very, very difficult coming in,” she said of acting, “in the Indigenous skin and the Indigenous experience, and as a woman.

“I had to keep my focus and try to do the best I could with whatever it was that I had. That’s how I could keep moving forward and maintain whatever sanity I had to work with.” 

Cardinal’s forward momentum seems to have been sustained by a mixture of patience, persistence and doggedness in the face of the obstacles confronting her.

“Sometimes sanity’s not the best thing,” she continued. “You’ve got to crash a door, and fail and get up … The obstruction of colonialism and genocide and this human thing that has difficulty accepting change … those are all barriers that make you crazy.”

The effects of the Canadian state’s policies toward Indigenous Peoples surrounded her from birth, and she shares a moment from childhood in which her grandmother led her through the dark without a flashlight to visit a group of healers in the woods. She adds, however, that “the outlawing of Indigenous languages and ways does not begin to describe what that experience actually is in your breath, in your mind, in your heart.

“The resilience of my people,” she said, “has always made me so proud. It has always given me strength: the incredible resilience that we have, and the power to love after all that … Genocide tries to destroy love and did a really good job, but the places that it wasn’t successful … Oh! That love is so powerful. And that’s what has brought us back to where we are today. That’s what brought back our rights to our language and our rights to our ceremonies and our rights to be who we are. And we still have to fight for it.”

Across the long arc of her career, there have certainly been changes: both in how the culture industry approaches Indigenous stories and also in Canada’s willingness to at least acknowledge the legacy of colonialism. The first of these is palpable in “Killers of the Flower Moon,” for which Cardinal — alongside Gladstone and non-Indigenous actors like Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro — was expected to learn Osage, a task she took on in close collaboration with members of the community and from a perspective of deep solidarity.

“I understand what it feels like to lose your language,” she said, describing the tremendous responsibility she felt in wielding the words and ideas of an endangered language. 

As for the future, Cardinal is unsure of exactly what comes next, but she feels animated by the possibilities, among them the prospect of producing for the first time. For now, she joked, “I’m just trying to eat my breakfast and live a good life so that I can stay around as best I can and watch out for the buses.”

Toward the end of our conversation, when I asked how she views the significant political and cultural shifts that have taken place since she began acting a half-century ago, Cardinal sounded optimistic about the power of a film like Scorsese’s to spark conversation and perhaps educate. She’s glad that someone of his stature took it up.

“It’s a horrific story,” she said. “But that’s the truth. And the truth is beautiful.”

By Luke Savage Special to the Star

NationTalk: Toronto – The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is proud to announce and Ashkenazi actor, writer, producer and director Jennifer Podemski as this year’s winner of the August Schellenberg Award of Excellence (the “Augie”). The announcement comes on the same day as early bird tickets go on sale for the 24th edition of the Festival.

The Augie is an annual prize that recognizes gifted Indigenous actors from across Turtle Island based on the longevity and impact of their careers, as well as their professionalism and involvement in mentorship and community work. To honour the memory of August Schellenberg, the award was launched in partnership with imagineNATIVE and August’s widow and lifelong partner Joan Karasevich.

“I’m beyond humbled to be receiving this recognition,” said Jennifer Podemski. “I knew Augie and always considered him a mentor and role model. To be awarded by imagineNATIVE in this way with this specific award, is so meaningful. “

Starting her career at 17, Podemski’s breakout role was Sadie in Bruce McDonald’s film, Dance Me Outside. Since then, she has earned herself Canadian Screen Awards for Best Supporting Actress, Best Film, and more. With her success, she has launched Big Soul Productions, becoming Canada’s first Indigenous owned and operated film/television production and post production company, and the Shine Network, a digital exhibition platform and talent incubator for Indigenous women content creators.

The Augie Award, with support from ACTRA, will be presented to Podemski at this year’s imagineNATIVE Awards Presentation during the Festival.

“Following in the footsteps of August Schellenberg, Jennifer Podemski is a trailblazer,” said Jani Lauzon, Writer/Actor/Director and member of the selection committee for the August Schellenberg Award. “She strives for excellence in her work as an actor, director and producer with a focus on lifting the lives and dignity of Indigenous people. Her work as an actor is both powerful and vulnerable while keeping her focus firmly routed in community.”

Taking place from October 17-22, 2023 (Toronto) and October 23-29, 2023 (online), early bird ticket packages for this year’s imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival are on sale now at imagineNATIVE.org.

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About imagineNATIVE:

The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is the world’s largest Indigenous festival showcasing film, video, audio, and digital + interactive media made by Indigenous creators. The Festival presents compelling and distinctive works from Canada and around the globe, reflecting the diversity of Indigenous Nations and illustrating the vitality and dynamism of Indigenous arts, perspectives, and cultures in contemporary media. imagineNATIVE.org

For media inquiries:

Ally LaMere-Shedden

Route 504 PR

ally@route504pr.com

Connie Walker and team at Spotify’s Gimlet Media win best audio journalism for Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s

CBC News: A Saskatchewan First Nations woman’s story about her father’s residential school experience has won the Pulitzer Prize and a Peabody Award in the span of 24 hours.

Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s, a podcast by journalist Connie Walker and the team at Spotify’s Gimlet Media, won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize on Monday for best audio journalism. The following day, it won a Peabody Award for its “its tenacious reporting and continued commitment to recognizing the full history of the Indigenous community” in the podcast and radio category.

“I feel like I’m still in shock. It’s disbelief. It means so much. It’s an incredible honour,” Walker said Monday. “I think of all of the people who bravely shared these stories with us. People should know these stories. More people will hear them now.”

Walker is a former CBC journalist now working for New York-based Gimlet Media. She’s a member of the Okanese First Nation in southern Saskatchewan. The team working with Walker included former Saskatoon StarPhoenix reporter Betty Ann Adam, a member of the Fond du Lac Denesuline Nation in northern Saskatchewan.

• Q&A Award-winning journalist Connie Walker’s latest podcast reconnects her with her roots

Walker said it’s important to recognize the history and stories of Indigenous communities, and that these stories are increasingly being told by Indigenous people themselves. “Our stories do matter,” she said.

LISTEN| CBC Radio’s The Morning Edition speaks with Walker about the honour and what it says about the stories she has been telling her whole career:

Click on the following link to access the audio:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/connie-walker-pulitzer-prize-podcast-1.6836625

Walker said she was inspired by the care Adam took with survivors, and by the determination of another Indigenous team member, Chantelle Bellrichard, who unearthed thousands of pages of documents for the project.

Walker, reached by phone in Seattle, said she’s been on the phone all day with her team, siblings and other relatives. “It’s been non-stop,” she said. “Lots of happy tears.”

Winners in other Pulitzer categories announced Monday included the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Associated Press.

The Peabody Awards, which honour stories told in broadcasting and digital media, will be handed out at a ceremony on June 11. Winners in other categories included PBS, Apple TV+ and Disney+ and HBO Max.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Warick, Reporter

Jason Warick is a reporter with CBC Saskatoon.

Abenaki filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin has spent a lifetime calling for a different future. Especially for Indigenous children.

The Tyee: Canada’s dark history is projected in full colour at Abenaki filmmaker and activist Alanis Obomsawin’s sprawling new exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery. From the violence of settler colonialism, to how Indigenous children have been systematically undervalued, to the exploitation and abuse of Indigenous women. But so too is the role of artists creating seismic change.

Amidst the largesse, it’s the smallest things that jump out. And by smallest, I mean the youngest. Children run all the way through the show. Hence the title The Children Have to Hear Another Story. Many of Obomsawin’s feature-length and short films take as their impetus the creative ways in which children contend with monumental challenges. 

After moving from her home community of Odanak, Obomsawin started grade school in the small town of Trois-Rivières, Quebec. She was the only Indigenous child in her class and endured beatings and abuse from her fellow students. 

Her lifetime of work is shaped by the filmmaker’s own experiences contending with racist violence at the hands of her white classmates, as well as a school curriculum that belittled and insulted her Indigeneity. At the age of 12, she decided to shift the narrative of her life by becoming a storyteller herself, sharing the richness and power of her culture with the world. 

“I thought, if the children could hear the stories I hear, maybe they would be behaving differently,” she states in the catalogue introduction to the show. Her idea arguably changed the course of Canadian history.The Tyee is supported by readers like you Join us and grow independent media in Canada

Now 90, Obomsawin still has the delight and ebullience of a little kid. Her joyful spirit infused the show’s opening at the Vancouver Art Gallery as the filmmaker talked about the many decades of her work on display. 

Horses are where Obomsawin’s journey as an artist began. They were among the animals visiting her dreams as a child. “As a little girl, it’s my dreams that saved my life,” she wrote in the exhibition guide. “At least when I was sleeping, nobody was beating me. I had a whole world.”

In her dream world, Obomsawin had hundreds of horses and other creatures to play with and visit. These figures, whether in drawings, films or the many hundreds of homemade toys that Obomsawin has created over the course of her life, possess vividness and febrile energy that shoots out like a force field. 

The NFB’s only staff filmmaker

The Children Have to Hear Another Story is curated by the Vancouver Art Gallery’s Richard Hill, Smith Jarislowsky (who, as of 2021, stepped into a new role at the gallery as senior curator of Canadian art), and Hila Peg. The show premiered at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt in 2022. Following its time at the VAG, the exhibition will travel to the University of Toronto’s Art Museum and the Musée d’art contemporain in Montreal over the next few years. 

Organized by decade, beginning in the 1960s and leading up to present day, the result is difficult to take it all in one visit. An exhibition of an artist who works largely in the cinematic medium is something of a challenge in a gallery setting. Watching complex documentaries, with people wandering in and around through the gallery, isn’t the most ideal way to take in a longer work. Luckily many of Obomsawin’s films are available to screen for free online through the National Film Board of Canada.

As the only remaining staff filmmaker at the NFB, Obomsawin’s work is reflective of what an institution like the National Film Board can do. It is always striking to me how many international filmmakers deeply revere the NFB. They admire what it has done and continues to do for filmmakers and audiences, both in Canada and around the world. Many of Obomsawin’s most remarkable documentaries were created with the support of the NFB, although it wasn’t always an easy process. 

While making her documentary Incident at Restigouche, internal NFB documents revealed that when Obomsawin requested permission to shoot additional interviews for her film, she was informed by the NFB management that she could not interview white subjects and was ordered to speak only with Indigenous people. This is a particularly painful reality given the nature of the story being documented. A series of raids in June 1981 ordered by then-minister of fisheries Lucien Lessard resulted in the Quebec Provincial Police descending in full riot gear upon the tiny Mi’kmaq village. Ostensibly, the raids were about fishing rights, but it was actually more a demonstration of control and power. After disregarding the dictum about interviews, the fiery exchange with Lessard became a critical part of the final film. 

This same conflict between Indigenous sovereignty and provincial authority was at the root of Obomsawin’s most well-known film Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance. On her way to work one morning, she heard the reports of the blockades being set up by Kanien’kéhaka (Mohawk) people over a proposed golf course on their traditional territory. Obomsawin spent months behind the barricades on the Kanien’kéhaka lands near Oka, Quebec. The original plans for a four-day shoot turned into 78 days on the ground, with Obomsawin filming hundreds of hours of footage. 

Even decades later, the film is astounding for what it captured about the relationship between Indigenous people and the Canadian authorities. After its release in 1993, the film screened around the world, winning more than a dozen awards, including Best Canadian Feature at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

None are more immediate than the story of Richard Cardinal. At age 17, Cardinal took his own life after being shuttled between 28 different foster homes before he’d reached his teens. He left behind a diary that formed the basis for the film. 

Rewatching Obomsawin’s short documentary feature Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child (1986), I was struck not only by filmmaker’s compassion for the young man at the centre of the story, but also for all of the people who failed to help or didn’t fully understand what to do. 

One of the most honest and blunt interviews in the film is Cardinal’s older brother, who stated matter-of-factly that it was only after the teenager’s death that authorities organized a time and place for the Cardinal family to reunite. “What Richard needed most was to go home. His funeral was the best social service that was provided for Richard, because it finally brought his family together.” As he rightly points out, if Richard had been able to rejoin his birth family earlier in his life, things might have turned out differently. 

The tragedy at the centre of the film had a profound impact on social services and Indigenous people. 

The exhibition takes pains to parallel Obomsawin’s work alongside larger and social developments, be it the Oka Crisis or the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. But it is the bedrock compassion and keen sense of justice that children possess that forms the essential animating spirit of the show. 

A quality present in the filmmaker’s images of fiery green horses as well as complex and carefully observed films like We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice, that details the case filed by the Assembly of First Nations and First Nations Child & Family Caring Society against the federal government to ensure that Indigenous children enjoyed the same rights and privileges as other young people. 

Making change count

Over the course of her career, Obomsawin has made 53 films, a staggering number made even more astounding when you consider the time and circumstances of their creation. When she started making work, Indigenous people had only recently gained the right to vote. Indigenous women who married white men automatically lost their status. Residential schools were ongoing. 

How much and how little has changed in Canada is the subtext that runs underneath the wealth of film clips, media interviews and archival footage. The material ranges from the smarmy patronizing interviews on CBC television to more troubling clashes with institutional oppression. But throughout her career, Obomsawin retained a singular focus on the experience of younger people, their joys and their suffering.

Even her earliest work, such as her directorial debut Christmas at Moose Factory, centred the lived experiences — as well as the hopes and dreams — of kids. Composed entirely of drawings by Cree children at a residential school in northern Ontario, Christmas at Moose Factory features the voices of the children living in the facility talking about a wide variety of things, from being scared by a black bear to the gold stars atop Christmas trees. 

Obomsawin’s methodology involves recording audio interviews with key participants prior to shooting footage. It is a careful way to build trust and intimacy that ultimately creates deeply resonant work. 

In an early interview, she described the particular capacity of non-fiction cinema as both a platform and a place of healing: “Documentary film is the one place that our people can speak for themselves. I feel that the documentaries that I’ve been working on have been very valuable for the people, for our people to look at ourselves… and through that be able to make changes that really count for the future of our children to come.”

‘The Children Have to Hear Another Story’ runs until Aug. 7 at the Vancouver Art Gallery. 

Dorothy Woodend TodayTheTyee.ca

Dorothy Woodend is the culture editor for The Tyee

Toronto Star: Documentary-maker Alanis Obomsawin is this year’s winner of the Edward MacDowell Medal.

The Canadian-American filmmaker is the first female director to win the lifetime achievement honour, presented by the MacDowell artist residency program.

Obomsawin is also the first recipient who descends from the Abenaki People, part of whose homeland is now the setting for MacDowell, based in Peterborough, N.H. A New Hampshire native who grew up in Quebec, the 90-yearold has made dozens of movies, focused often on First Nations people, her credits including “Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance” and “Incident at Restigouche.”

Obomsawin is also an activist, actor and musician who has received numerous awards in Canada.

“As the Grand Dame of the Indigenous film world and the documentary field, Alanis Obomsawin’s exemplary 52- year body of work uplifting In- digenous stories and triumph inspired us with compelling and unequivocal enthusiasm to award her with the 2023 Ed- ward MacDowell Medal,” Bird Runningwater, a member of the Medal Selection Panel and guide for the Sundance Insti- tute’s investment in Native American and Indigenous filmmakers, said in a state- ment.

The Canadian writer Jesse Wente, board chair of Canada’s Council for the Arts, will introduce Obomsawin during a July 23 gathering at MacDowell.

CTV News- Regina: The Indigenous Communication Arts (INCA) program at the First Nations University of Canada in Regina has begun their summer institute, an accelerated program that runs every other year for aspiring journalists.

The program has been running for over thirty years, and has seen some national names get their start. Shannon Avison, who helped create the program, said the need for Indigenous journalists is necessary, especially given the landscape in the country over the past two years.

“People are realizing how much more important it is to have Indigenous people in the news room, and there’s a shortage,” Avison told CTV Regina. “As fast as we’re pumping students out, they are getting snapped up and moving to bigger markets, like Creeson.”

CTV’s Creeson Agecoutay from Cowessess First Nation attended the program back in 2007 and his on-air personality was quickly acknowledged, making INCA the perfect stepping stone. Agecoutay now serves as the National Atlantic Bureau Chief in Halifax, and Avison hopes his journey will inspire the next generation of Indigenous youth to join the industry.

“People are seeing, young people are seeing that there are opportunities in this industry and it’s really important because they need role models,” she added. “It’s a great time for Indigenous people to be getting into journalism,” Standing said. “I know there’s not a lot of us out there, so I’m hoping to be able to enter the field and give an Indigenous perspective on some of the current events that are happening.”

The two-year program is offered across Canada, allowing students to study at home, apart from the six-week summer portion.

Journalists for Human Rights – Launched in 2014 the Indigenous Reporters Program seeks to increase the quality and quantity of Indigenous stories and voices in media in Canada. To achieve this the program:

• Works directly in and with Indigenous communities, engaging interested community members on journalism and media literacy capacity building programming.
• Creates pathways of opportunities for Indigenous peoples to pursue careers in journalism through internship, mentorship and networking opportunities ultimately strengthening Indigenous voices in Canadian media.
• Engages and trains non-Indigenous journalists and journalism students on best practices for reporting on Indigenous stories to ensure stories are reported on with more accuracy, frequency, and offer better informed perspectives.

“Our original target was to train 300 people, and we’ve now trained over 1,600,” says program lead Megan Fowler. “Our goal is to move beyond a one-time training approach and assist with curriculum development and institutional changes that increase the quality of reporting on Indigenous stories.”

APTN is the first national Indigenous broadcaster in the world and has served Indigenous peoples in Canada as well as Canadian audiences, for over two decades. Steadfastly adhering to its mission: “to share our Peoples’ journey, celebrate our cultures, inspire our children and honour the wisdom of our Elders.”
Aimed at both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal audiences with programming to interest all viewers: children’s animation, youth, cultural and traditional programming, music, drama, news and current affairs, as well as live coverage of special events and interactive programming.