Spudwrench (1998)

Spudwrench (1998). 58m

“Spudwrench is one of the First Nation filmmaker Alanis Obomsawimu0026#39;s series on the Mohawk people.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFeaturing the story of Randy Horn, a Kahnawake Mohawk Ironworker who became involved with the Oka Crisis of 1990, a land dispute to enlarge a golf course which would have dislocated a Mohawk cemetery and further encroached upon First Nations land claims (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_crisis).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSpudwrench gives insight into the iron-worker trade, the desire of Mohawk men to seek a living wage in the big cities of America amidst a small hometown setting (reservation-style) in First Nations Canada.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe film also benefits from commentary from Mohawk elders and explains the Quebec Bridge disaster, which took the lives of large numbers of Mohawk iron-workers in 1907. Of the 75 workers killed, 33 were Mohawk.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIncludes archival footage of the Oka Crisis of 1990.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAn excellent feature of the National Film Board of Canada. Other Obomsawim productions of the Mohawks of Kahnawake include Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993) and Rocks at Whiskey Trench (2000).”