Dream Magic

Alanis Obomsawin was born during a solar eclipse: an event that foreshadowed her destiny as a storyteller. Katerina Cizek's portrait of this extraordinary artist, layered with animation, music and image, beautifully recalls Alanis Obomsawin's work. Obomsawin began her career as a singer, visiting schools and prisons. "I had no idea about filmmaking," she says. "Never even thought about it." It was her interest in children that prompted a visit to a residential school in James Bay, where she asked the children to tell their own stories and make drawings to accompany them. The film, Christmas at Moose Factory (1971), launched her career with the National Film Board of Canada. Over the next thirty years, Ms. Obomsawin would document some of the most startling events in Canadian history including the armed standoff between the Canadian Army and Mohawk warriors in Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993). Alanis Obomsawin's films span a broad cross section of social issues, but they are always intensely and immediately human. "For me, a real documentary is when you're really listening to somebody; they are the ones that will tell you what the story is, not you."