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Ohama Linda
Since the early 1970s, Linda Ohama has been working as a visual artist, art educator and more recently as an award-winning documentary filmmaker.
Obachan's Garden is Ohama's first feature-length film and her first to be produced by the National Film Board of Canada. In this docu-drama, Ohama peels back the layers of her grandmother's life to create an intensely personal reflection of Japanese-Canadian history and a testament to one woman's incredible endurance and spirit.
Ohama embarked on her first independent film production in 1991 with The Last Harvest, a one-hour documentary relating to both her Japanese Canadian heritage and her life growing up on a prairie family potato farm. The film received several international awards including, the Yorkton Film Festival Antoinette Kryski Canadian Heritage Award, the Columbus International Film Festival Bronze Plaque, the Chicago International Film Festival Silver Plaque and the Philadelphia International Film Festival Silver Plaque. It was nominated for the Banff Television Festival Prize (1995). The Last Harvest was broadcast on CTV in Canada and NHK in Japan.
Ohama's second documentary Neighbours: Wild Horses & Cowboys was awarded the Yorkton Film Festival Special Jury Award, the Chicago International Film Festival's Gold Plaque and the Pacific Northwest International Film Festival Judge's Award.
Other film credits include Watari Dori: A Bird of Passage (winner of a Gold Medal at Houston Worldfest 1998) and The Travelling Reverend.
As a visual artist, Ohama has exhibited Jack Darcus and Linda Ohama (1998) at the Surrey Art Gallery; Visions of Power (1991) at the Leo Kamen Gallery and Earth Spirit Festival in Toronto; and Memories and Desires (1992) at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
