Saturday, March 8: 1pm: HI-HO MISTAHEY! Director: Alanis Obomsawin
Canada, 2013 English, Cree with English subtitles 100 minutes Documentary
For more than forty years, legendary documentary filmmaker and activist Alanis Obomsawin has given voice to Canada’s First Peoples, chronicling the dismantling of indigenous culture and battles with dominant society. Her new film addresses another pressing issue affecting this country’s First Nations communities: the shockingly low levels of school funding and basic maintenance from Canada’s federal and provincial governments.
The Attawapiskat First Nation closed their elementary school in 2000 due to toxic land contamination. Since then, students have been learning in chilly, rundown portables infested with rodents. This has led to high teacher turnover and a host of other problems. Frustrated by unfulfilled promises of a new school from the government, the late Shannen Koostachin began one of the largest ever youth-driven movements, now called “Shannen’s Dream,” which pressed for safe, comfortable schools and
culturally based equitable education for aboriginal students. Hi-Ho Mistahey! chronicles this
campaign, culminating in a delegation of six First Nations youth ambassadors presenting in Geneva to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
A master of capturing irony and injustice, Obomsawin reveals startling facts. For example,under Canada’s Federal Department of Aboriginal Affairs, school funding is not protected and can easily be redirected to pay for community roadwork, or litigation. Historically, Canada’s treatment of its
indigenous population has been shameful to say the least, and though there has been progress in
recent years, Hi-Ho Mistahey! is a testament to the amount of change still needed. Obomsawin’s
latest film is one of her best, a searing criticism of government oversight told compassionately and with an unyielding message: all children deserve the chance to succeed.
The trailer:
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