Volume 26 Issue 3 - November 2020

FEATURE
Celebrating Alanis
Obomsawin
2020 Glenn Gould Prize Laureate
BY PAUL ENNIS
COSMOS IMAGE ANNABELLE MOREAU
“No matter how difficult
times are, try to remember
that everywhere in the
world there are a lot of good
people and somehow, in
the worst times, you meet
someone who will help take
Alanis Obamsowin
you away from the danger.
Do not forget that, because if you only think
of the bad part, you do not have much hope
for the future. But I think it is the contrary. All
these years, many times I was in danger and
there was always someone who would appear
and help me and get me out of that danger.
I want to thank all the people who helped me
in my lifetime when it was difficult.”
— Alanis Obomsawin
Every two years, the Glenn Gould Foundation convenes an international
jury to award the Glenn Gould Prize to a living individual
for a unique lifetime contribution that has enriched the
human condition through the arts. Alanis Obomsawin, prolific documentary
filmmaker, singer-songwriter, visual artist, activist and
member of the Abenaki Nation, was chosen as the 13th Glenn Gould
Prize Laureate on October 15, by a distinguished international jury
chaired by groundbreaking performance artist, musician and filmmaker,
Laurie Anderson.
Announced in an emotionally compelling virtual press conference
that stretched across the planet, from Chennai, India, to Hollywood,
the Glenn Gould Foundation shone a light on the greatest Canadian
filmmaker you may never have heard of. Alanis Obomsawin has
directed more than 50 films for the National Film Board of Canada,
where she has worked since 1967. Her body of work includes the
landmark documentary, the internationally acclaimed Kanehsatake:
270 Years of Resistance (1993), the first of four films she made about
the 1990 Oka Crisis.
Now 88, she continues to make films. With Jordan River Anderson,
the Messenger (2019), she recently completed a film cycle devoted to
the rights of Indigenous children. She received the news of winning
the Glenn Gould Prize while on set making a new film about a dream
she had as a young woman. The main character is a green horse.
“I never expected to win such an honour,” Obomsawin said via
video during the press conference. “I am in my village of Odanak in
the province of Quebec. This is where I was raised. And this morning
I watched the sun rise. It was like a prayer – it is the beginning of life.
Our people’s name [Abenaki] means ‘people from where the sun rises,
people of the East.’”
At the press conference, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
Beverly McLachlin, a board member of the Glenn Gould Foundation
6 | November 2020 thewholenote.com