Alanis Obomsawin, (born August 31, 1932) is an Abenaki American-Canadian filmmaker, singer, artist, and activist primarily known for her documentary films. Born in New Hampshire, United States and raised primarily in Quebec, Canada, she has written and directed many National Film Board of Canada documentaries on First Nations issues. Obomsawin is a member of Film Fatales independent women filmmakers. Obomsawin relates that "the basic purpose [of her films] is for our people to have a voice [...] no matter what we're talking about whether it has to do with having our existence recognized, or whether it has to do with speaking about our values, our survival, our beliefs, that we belong to something beautiful, that it's O.K. to be an Indian, to be a native person in this country". Her best known documentary is Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, regarding the 1990 Oka Crisis in Quebec. Early life Obomsawin, which means "pathfinder", was born on August 31, 1932, near Lebanon, New Hampshire. When she was six months old, her family returned to the Odanak reserve located near Sorel, Quebec, northeast of Montreal, Canada, where she lived until she was seven years old. Her mother ran a boarding house and her father was a medicine maker and a guide. During this period they lived with her maternal aunt Jesse Benedict, her husband Levi Benedict, and their own six children. Théophile Panadis, her mother's cousin, initiated Obomsawin into the history of the Abenaki Nation and taught her many songs and legends. When she was nine years old, Obomsawin and her parents left Odanak for Trois-Rivières, where they were the only Native family. Cut off, at that time speaking little French and no English, Obomsawin held fast to the songs and stories she had learned on the reserve. Her father died of tuberculosis when she was twelve. At 22 she left the reserve. During a two-year stay in Florida she also learned English. In the late 1950s she moved back to Montreal and began performing as a singer and a storyteller, making appearances on reservations, in prisons and schools, and at music festivals. In 1960, she debuted as a singer during a concert at Town Hall in Manhattan. Her only child, Kisos Obomsawin, was born in 1969. Career Singer, songwriter In 1960, Obomsawin made her professional debut as a singer-songwriter in New York City. As a performer Obomsawin has toured Canada, the United