For 38 days in 1974, a group of indigenous activists staged an occupation at Anicinabe Park near Kenora, Ontario. Though little known now, the Ojibway Warriors’ protest over the ongoing mistreatment of First Nations peoples helped spark a wider movement in Canada and the U.S. Together with co-writer Tanya Talaga – who first learned of the stand at Anicinabe Park while researching her book All My Relations —  director Shane Belcourt (TKARONTO, KCFF08) casts a new light on these extraordinary events and their wider effects and repercussions. In so doing, he draws a line between the circumstances that inspired the late Louis Cameron, the protest’s charismatic leader, with issues and problems that persist today. A galvanizing story of resistance and resilience, Belcourt’s documentary brings this chapter of history straight into the present.

Director: Shane Belcourt

Language: English, Anishinaabemowin with English subtitles

Runtime: 90 minutes

Content warning: Police violence, discussion of self-harm, violence against Indigenous Peoples

Stuart Coxe

Scott Rutherford, historian

Scott is an Associate Professor in Global Development Studies and the Cultural Studies Graduate Program. His research interests include transnational Canadian social and cultural history and histories of anti-colonial movements in North America. He is the co-editor of Canada and the Third World: Overlapping Histories (University of Toronto Higher Education Press, 2015) and wrote Canada’s Other Red Scare: Indigenous Protest and Colonial Encounters during the Global Sixties (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2020).