MIFF x Birrarangga FF: Free Leonard Peltier Special Screening

Premiering at Sundance and winning three awards at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, this rousing film charts the 50-year fight to release an icon of Native American activism from prison.

In 1975, Ojibwe/Lakota activist Leonard Peltier was involved in a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota that resulted in the deaths of two FBI agents and one Indigenous man. After a highly contentious trial involving evidence withholding and witness coercion, Peltier was convicted of murdering the FBI agents. Over the 50 years he spent in prison, Peltier maintained his innocence as many fought for his freedom, including generations of Native Americans as well as public figures like Nelson Mandela, Marlon Brando and Pope Francis.

Seamlessly integrating rich archival footage with new interviews, directors Jesse Short Bull (Lakota Nation Vs. United States) and David France (Welcome to Chechnya, MIFF 2020) situate Peltier’s story within the centuries of systematic oppression, institutional racism and abuse faced by Indigenous Americans. Merely days before the film’s world premiere at Sundance, the filmmakers managed to incorporate one more extraordinary development in Peltier’s case: a grant of clemency, one of Joe Biden’s final acts as US president.

“It’s difficult not to be swept up by the emotion of Peltier’s journey. Free Leonard Peltier is as defiant as its subject.” – RogerEbert.com

Director Jesse Short Bull is a guest of the festival and will be in attendance at the screening.