Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance. 1993. Canada. Directed by Alanis Obomsawin. DCP. 119 min.
On a hot July day in 1990, a historic confrontation propelled the villages of Kanehsatake and Oka, in Quebec, into the international spotlight, and indigenous issues into the Canadian conscience. Obomsawin endured seventy-eight nerve-wracking days and nights filming an armed standoff between the Mohawk community, the Quebec police, and the Canadian army, the result of a dispute about the development of a golf course on a sacred burial ground. The director’s first feature provides stirring insight into the struggle to protect Mohawk land.