Screenings
June 15 | 1 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.
Kanehsatake Resistance: Indigenous Women Filmmakers’ Voices and Perspectives
Free Activity | Space is limited, Reservation required
To mark National Indigenous History Month and the 35th anniversary of the Kanehsatake Resistance, the McCord Stewart Museum presents a double-feature screening that offers two perspectives on this pivotal moment in history, through the eyes of two Indigenous women filmmakers.
Program
- 1 to 2:30 p.m.: Screening of Beans
- 2:30 to 2:45 p.m.: Break
- 2:45 to 4:45 p.m.: Screening of Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
Beans
Twelve-year-old Beans is on the edge: torn between innocent childhood and reckless adolescence; forced to grow up fast and become the tough Mohawk warrior she needs to be during the Oka Crisis, the turbulent Indigenous uprising that tore Quebec and Canada apart for 78 tense days in the summer of 1990.
Screening in English with French subtitles | Beans, Tracey Deer, Canada, 2020
Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance
In July 1990, a dispute over a proposed golf course to be built on Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) lands in Oka, Quebec, set the stage for a historic confrontation that would grab international headlines and sear itself into the Canadian consciousness. Director Alanis Obomsawin – at times with a small crew, at times alone – spent 78 days behind Kanien’kehá:ka lines filming the armed standoff between protestors, the Quebec police and the Canadian army. Released in 1993, this landmark documentary has been seen around the world, winning over a dozen international awards and making history at the Toronto International Film Festival, where it became the first documentary ever to win the Best Canadian Feature award. Jesse Wente, Director of Canada’s Indigenous Screen Office, has called it a “watershed film in the history of First Peoples cinema.”
Screening in French | Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, Alanis Obomsawin, Canada, 1993
Information
Space limited, reservation required.
Is the activity you’re interested in fully booked? Show up 15 minutes early to get on the waitlist. Places may become available before the start of the activity.
- Free activity, in French and English, presented on Sunday, June 15, 2025, from 1 to 4:45 p.m.
- Length: 3 h 45
- Location: J. Armand Bombardier Theatre at the McCord Stewart Museum
Tracey Deer
Tracey Penelope Tekahentakwa Deer is a Mohawk screenwriter, film director, producer and newspaper publisher.
Her first collaboration with Rezolution Pictures and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) was the acclaimed 2005 documentary Mohawk Girls, which follows the lives of three young women from the Kahnawake reserve. In 2015, she adapted it into a television series broadcast on APTN.
In 2008, she became the first Mohawk person to receive a Gemini Award, for the short film Club Native, a documentary exploring the lives of four Mohawk women affected by the Indian Act’s discriminatory treatment of women who marry a non-Indigenous man.
Her first narrative feature film, Beans (2020), was selected for several international festivals, including TIFF (2020) and the Berlinale (2021, Generation KPlus category). In Canada, it earned multiple awards and nominations.
Alanis Obomsawin
One of the world’s most preeminent Indigenous filmmakers, Alanis Obomsawin began her career as a singer and storyteller before coming to film in 1967 as an NFB consultant. Her extraordinary body of work – 50 films, and she’s still making them! – includes landmark documentaries like Incident at Restigouche and Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance. The Abenaki filmmaker has received countless international honours. In 2008, the Museum of Modern Art in New York presented a retrospective of her work.
National Indigenous History Month
Special Indigenous cultures programming
In June, in recognition of National Indigenous History Month, the McCord Stewart Museum honours the cultures and traditions of First Peoples through its permanent exhibition and a series of activities open to all audiences.
Engage with Indigenous perspectives through experiences that foster discovery, dialogue, and reflection.
Learn more
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