Free Leonard Peltier
Type/Status
Documentary Feature
Post-Production
Directors
Jesse Short Bull
David France
Producers
Jhayne Myers
Bird Runningwater
Paul McGuire
Tomas Naglis
Jodi Archambault
In the early 1970s, the United States was roiled by protest: Vietnam, women’s rights, gay rights, black power and, rising up at the forefront, the American Indian Movement, AIM. Leonard Peltier was a young mechanic when he joined AIM to advocate for his people and quickly found himself swept up in a war between activists and the US government. FREE LEONARD PELTIER, the new documentary from acclaimed directors Jesse Short Bull and David France, revisits the turbulent era of AIM, bringing alive the occupations, arrests, demands, and assassinations and culminating in the FBI’s descent onto the compound on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where Peltier was staying. After two FBI agents are killed in the ensuing shootout, Peltier is arrested, tried, convicted of their murder and sentenced to two life terms in prison in one of the most notorious and discredited legal judgments in modern America. Fifty years later, with Peltier newly out of jail by way of an end-of-term commutation (but not pardon) from President Joseph Biden, Native-led production FREE LEONARD PELTIER arrives to revisit his case in a new era and to advocate for just what its title suggests.
Co-Director: Jesse Short Bull (Member of Oglala Sioux Tribe) is a writer and director with a deep connection to his home in the Badlands of South Dakota. LAKOTA NATION VS. UNITED STATES (2022), his most recent film, premiered at Tribeca in 2022 and has won multiple festival awards. The recipient of a fellowship from the Sundance Documentary Fund, Short Bull is also the first Indigenous filmmaker to ever be named to the prestigious DOC NYC Shortlist program. A graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts, Short Bull previously received a 2016 Sundance Institute Native American and Indigenous Program Development Grant and also attended the Creative Producing Summit at Sundance.
Co-Director: David France is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, New York Times bestselling author, and award-winning investigative journalist. France directed HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (2012), which received Academy and Emmy nominations and a Peabody Award. His 2017 film, THE DEATH & LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON, a Netflix Original Documentary, won the Outfest “Freedom Award” and a special jury recognition from Sheffield International Documentary Festival. He won a BAFTA, Peabody, Teddy, and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award for WELCOME TO CHECHNYA (2020), which premiered at Sundance. David's latest film, HBO’s HOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC (2022), won The Cinema for Peace Award on Global Health 2022 and an Emmy award for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary.
Producer: Jhane Myers (Comanche and Blackfeet Nations) is an Emmy award winning filmmaker, Producer Guild of America nominee in 2023 for the six time Primetime Emmy nominated and winning “Prey” (20th Century/Disney), and Sundance Alumni, recognized for her passion and dedication to films surrounding preserving the legacies of Native language, human rights and Communities. Myers is currently a Gotham-Cannes 2024 producer fellow and is producing a documentary on the longest serving US political prisoner and Native American activist Leonard Peltier (Public Square Films) and a narrative feature titled “Will to Win” (Kirkpatrick & Kinslow Productions).
Producer: Bird Runningwater (Cheyenne and Mescalero Apache Tribal Nations) was raised on the Mescalero Apache Reservation in New Mexico. He is a Producer and Executive Producer for film and television and most recently signed a first look deal to create content with Amazon Studios. He is currently serving as a Co-Executive Producer on the TV show SOVEREIGN currently in development with Ava DuVernay, Warner Brothers Television, and Array Filmworks; And, he is an Executive Producer on Erica Tremblay’s debut feature FANCY DANCE which premiered in Competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Prior to launching his producing career, Runningwater guided the Sundance Institute’s commitment to Indigenous Filmmakers for 20 years nurturing new generations of filmmakers through the Institute’s Labs and Sundance Film Festival.
Producer: An established producer and showrunner, PAUL McGuire's documentaries include the Amazon Studios film FLIGHT/RISK (2022), about the Boeing 737 Max disasters and the subsequent cover-up of corporate negligence. For Showtime he produced the documentary series JJ Abram’s UFO (2021), and for HBO he developed and packaged the Covid documentary HOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC (2022). He also produced: the series DOGS (2018) for Netflix; a feature doc about the Women’s March, THIS IS PERSONAL (2019), which premiered at Sundance; and the critically acclaimed HBO series, THE CASE AGAINST ADNAN SYED (2019).
Executive Producer: Jodi Archambault (Hunkpapa and Oglala Lakota) is currently living on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. She grew up in the Pejuta Haka district in Kyle, SD in the homelands of the Oglala. Jodi is the Executive Producer for REZ BALL, a Netflix feature film and also is Executive Producer for the documentary LAKOTA NATION VS. UNITED STATES (2022). Jodi also works for Indigenize, an initiative of Wend Collective - a social impact fund. Previously, Jodi worked at the White House as a Special Assistant to President Obama in the Domestic Policy Council.
Director of Photography: Kyle Bell (Thlopthlocco Creek Tribal Town) is an Emmy award winning Director, Editor and Cinematographer based in Tulsa, OK. Bell is a 2019 Sundance Indigenous Program Alumni, 2020 Tulsa Artist Fellow, and is the Rolex Protégé to cinema legend Spike Lee.