When the town of Oka, near Quebec, Canada, decides to expand a golf course onto sacred land belonging to the Indigenous Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) people, in June 1990, a group of activists occupies the forest marked for clearing. The handful of Mohawks are trying to halt centuries of land theft, but are soon met with absurdly excessive force: a huge police presence is deployed, followed by the army.
The media are systematically kept at a distance from the injustices taking place. Nevertheless, director Alanis Obomsawin, sometimes alone and sometimes with a small crew, manages to document all 78 days of the occupation. In this David-and-Goliath struggle, the Mohawks have been on the losing side for centuries, repeatedly driven from their land or betrayed by broken promises. In an observational style, the film follows their struggle chronologically, as it makes international headlines and enters history.
Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance was a success at festivals, and was the first documentary to win the Toronto International Film Festival’s Best Canadian Feature award.
Stills
Dead Angle is a multi-year focus program that uses documentary cinema to reveal what remains outside our direct field of vision. This year, it explores the act of finding common ground: how people come together through solidarity, collective resistance, community and public space.
Dead Angle is supported by Vfonds
