Join us for an in-person screening at the Daniels Faculty of Alanis Obomsawin’s seminal work “Trick or Treaty?” Co-presented with StreetART Toronto.

Graphic by Mariah Meawasige (@Makoose)

Trick or Treaty? 
2014 | 1 h 24 min
Directed by: Alanis Obomsawin

“Covering a vast swath of northern Ontario, Treaty No. 9 reflects the often contradictory interpretations of treaties between First Nations and the Crown. To the Canadian government, this treaty represents a surrendering of Indigenous sovereignty, while the descendants of the Cree signatories contend its original purpose to share the land and its resources has been misunderstood and not upheld. Enlightening as it is entertaining, Trick or Treaty? succinctly and powerfully portrays one community’s attempts to enforce their treaty rights and protect their lands, while also revealing the complexities of contemporary treaty agreements. Trick or Treaty? made history as the first film by an Indigenous filmmaker to be part of the Masters section at TIFF when it screened there in 2014.”

Alanis Obomsawin is one of the most acclaimed Indigenous directors in the world, she came to cinema from performance and storytelling. Hired by the NFB as a consultant in 1967, she has created an extraordinary body of work—50 films and counting—including landmark documentaries like Incident at Restigouche (1984) and Kanehsatake: 270 Years ofResistance (1993). The Abenaki director has received numerous international honours and her work was showcased in a 2008 retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. “My main interest all my life has been education,” says Obomsawin, “because that’s where you develop yourself, where you learn to hate, or to love.” 

Read more about Alanis Obomsawin here

StreetARToronto (StART), an initiative of the City of Toronto, Transportation Services Division, is a suite of innovative programs intentionally designed to showcase, celebrate and support street, mural and graffiti artists and art throughout Toronto. 

StART programs and projects are rooted in a set of values that demonstrate the positive and powerful impacts of diversity and inclusion, foster community engagement and civic pride, add colour and vitality to neighbourhoods, encourage active transportation, showcase Toronto artists and contribute to their skills development, mentor emerging talent, and create opportunities for positive engagement among residents, business owners and operators, artists and arts organizations. 

Toronto is home to some of the best street, mural and graffiti art and artists in the world. StreetARToronto is committed to creating value with and for them, from their entry onto the street art scene with access to small canvasses and micro grants, all the way to large scale murals on multi-story buildings, skills building workshops, international artist exchanges and more.