Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway Hiawatha, the Messiah of the Ojibway is a 1903 dramatic short film shot in Canada directed by the American pioneering cinematographer and director Joe Rosenthal, based on the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's famous poem, "The Song of Hiawatha", made in Desbarats, Ontario, with a cast of Ojibway First Nations people. According to the "Canadian Journal of Film Studies", it was the first dramatic narrative film to be shot in Canada. At 15 minutes, "Hiawatha" was considerably longer than the usual productions of 1903, which rarely exceeded three minutes. The film's subtitle was "The Passion Play
Hiawatha (1952 film) the Longfellow classic." Assigning 2 stars (out of 5), "The Motion Picture Guide" stated that "Edwards is cast as the title character in this family version of the classic Longfellow poem" and ultimately described it as "[A]n entertaining film for kids that masks its theme in a flurry of arrows and romance." Among British references, Leslie Halliwell, in his "Film Guide", gave no stars (Halliwell's top rating is 4), dismissing it as a "[M]uddled actioner which has little to do with Longfellow's poem." Hiawatha (1952 film) Hiawatha is a 1952 American film based on the 1855 epic poem "The Song