Neil Diamond is a

Cree The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

filmmaker based in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, born and raised in

Waskaganish, Quebec Waskaganish ( cr, ᐙᔅᑳᐦᐄᑲᓂᔥ/Wâskâhîkaniš, Little House; ) is a Cree community of over 2,500 people at the mouth of the Rupert River on the south-east shore of James Bay in Northern Quebec, Canada. Waskaganish is part of the t ...

. Working with

Rezolution Pictures Rezolution Pictures is a film and television production company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, focusing primarily on Canadian Aboriginal productions. The company was founded in 2001 by the husband and wife team of Ernest Webb and Catherine ...

, Diamond has directed the documentary films ''

Reel Injun ''Reel Injun'' is a 2009 Canadian documentary film directed by Cree filmmaker Neil Diamond, Catherine Bainbridge, and Jeremiah Hayes that explores the portrayal of Native Americans in film. ''Reel Injun'' is illustrated with excerpts from classic ...

'', ''The Last Explorer'', ''One More River'', ''Heavy Metal: A Mining Disaster in Northern Quebec'' and ''Cree Spoken Here'', along with three seasons of ''DAB IYIYUU'', a series for the

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN, stylized aptn) is a Canadian specialty channel. Established in 1992 and maintained by governmental funding to broadcast in Canada's northern territories, APTN acquired a national broadcast lice ...

about Cree elders. In the 2008

docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event". Docudramas typic ...

''The Last Explorer'', Diamond explored the story of his great-uncle George Elson, a Cree

guide A guide is a person who leads travelers, sportspeople, or tourists through unknown or unfamiliar locations. The term can also be applied to a person who leads others to more abstract goals such as knowledge or wisdom. Travel and recreation Expl ...

who helped to map

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

as part of an ill-fated 1903 expedition with

Leonidas Hubbard Leonidas Hubbard Jr. (1872–1903) was an American journalist and adventurer. He was born in Michigan and studied at the University of Michigan (1893–97), choosing journalism as a career. In 1901 he married Mina Adelaine Benson, a woman two y ...

and Dillon Wallace, and a return voyage in 1905 with Hubbard's widow

Mina Hubbard Mina Benson Hubbard (April 15, 1870 - May 4, 1956) was a Canadian explorer and was the first white woman to travel and explore the back-country of Labrador. The Nascaupee and George River system were first accurately mapped by her in 1905. She w ...

. As of April 2011, Diamond is developing a project with Inuit filmmaker

Zacharias Kunuk Zacharias Kunuk ( iu, ᓴᖅᑲᓕᐊᓯ ᑯᓄᒃ, born November 27, 1957) is a Canadian Inuk producer and director most notable for his film '' Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner'', the first Canadian dramatic feature film produced entirely in Inukt ...

about the 18th-century conflict between Cree and Inuit, which lasted almost a century.

''Reel Injun''

''Reel Injun'' was inspired by Diamond's own experiences as a child in Waskaganish, where he and other Native children would play cowboys and Indians after local screenings of

Westerns The Western is a genre set in the American frontier and commonly associated with folk tales of the Western United States, particularly the Southwestern United States, as well as Northern Mexico and Western Canada. It is commonly referred ...

in their remote community. Diamond remembers that although the children were in fact "Indians," they all wanted to be the

cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquer ...

s. Afterwards, when he was old enough to move south to study, he would be questioned by non-Native people about whether his people lived in

teepee A tipi , often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan, and in use in Dakhótiyapi, Lakȟó ...

s and rode horses, causing Diamond to realize that their preconceptions about Native people were also derived from movies. These stereotypes motivated him to help America see the true identity of what a Native American was.

Awards

Diamond received the award for Best Direction in a Documentary Program at the

2010 Gemini Awards The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television's 25th Gemini Awards were held on November 15, 2010, to honour achievements in Canadian television. The awards show, which was hosted by Cory Monteith, took place at Toronto’s Winter Garden Theatre a ...

for ''Reel Injun''. It also earned him a 2011

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...

References

External links

Native Networks biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Diamond, Neil Cree people First Nations filmmakers Canadian documentary film directors Film directors from Montreal Canadian television directors Canadian Screen Award winners People from Eeyou Istchee (territory) Peabody Award winners Living people Year of birth missing (living people)