Réalisé par Alanis Obomsawin |
Canada, 1977 (documentaire, 40 minutes, couleurs, anglais) |
Image : © Office national du film du Canada |
Description du film [en anglais] : « A week-long festival was organized by a group of Montreal residents to raise funds in support of the Cree Indians who stood to lose their land because of the James Bay hydro-electric project. This film, made by Native filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin, alternates between spectacular performances by Indian and Inuit peoples and the meeting halls of Mistassini, where they talk of their past as a way of defending their future. » -- National Film Board of Canada (source) |
Générique (partiel) : | |
Produit par : | Alanis Obomsawin, Dorothy Courtois, Wolf Koenig |
Images : | Bob Charlie, Buckley Petawabano |
Montage images : | Jeanette Lerman, Buckley Petawabano, Daniel Wapachee, Judith Merritt |
Société de production : | National Film Board of Canada |
« The performances are shot in a traditional observational style [in Amisk]. But [Alanis] Obomsawin creates a unique, idiosyncratic rendering of time-space for testimony and witness. When we see Indigenous people who listen, rapt and animated in their attention, just as Obomsawin is when we see her performing this function—the Indigenous witness, the local listener, the active receiver—we are taught a new way to perform our function as well. »
-- Alexandra Juhasz
(source)
« Amisk is more than a concert film, a somewhat pejorative designation in nonfiction cinema. Rather, it is a testimony to cultural survival and creativity. Indeed, Obomsawin captured what was in many ways a turning point for Native resistance against government arrogance and white Canadian ethnocentrism, using the concert as a microcosm of the larger perspective in which unique Native voices would talk back to white Canada and, for the first time, be heard. »
-- Randolph Lewis
(source)