Quote:
"I always had problems because I was Indian and all that goes with that. All of a sudden there were many other reasons—because I was a woman, because I had a child, I wasn't married. I fitted all those things that [make] people feel you don't belong. I was surprised, because I was so used to being put down, because I am Indian and all that. But all of a sudden there were so many other things, it was like a discovery of how a lot of other people are put down just because they are women. And there weren't many women filmmakers—certainly not Indigenous women filmmakers. And when I came into the [National] Film Board, although I was invited there, it was also difficult because there were people who were called the experts on Indians, so they didn't like my presence there. So there were all those things to go through, and to continue working, and fight back and advance a bit more. If I didn't believe as much as I did in what I was doing, I would have never lasted."
-- Alanis Obomsawin

Source:
Deerchild, Rosanna, and Tasha Hubbard. "The lens of Alanis Obomsawin." Interview with Alanis Obomsawin. Herizons, vol. 27, no. 1, Summer 2013.