Free Leonard Peltier

Watched at the 2025 Birrarangga Film Festival, Naarm (Melbourne) tonight.

This wasn't the first documentary I had seen regarding Leonard Peltier.

Michael Apted's Incident at Oglala (1992) was an excellent film, but this new documentary filled many holes in how the FBI's manipulation of this case kept an innocent man in jail for 49 years and filled every new generation of FBI agents with toxic lies about the man.

I was pleased to hear of his release (thanks to President Biden), but even that was blighted by the addition of House arrest. No one with the commutation of their sentence has ever been hit with that before. The FBI should be ashamed of their behaviour.

Watched at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

In the light of Leonard Peltier being free, the context of the documentary may sour for some, but what succeeds with this documentary is the filmmaker's ambitious approach that explores a very well-developed interest about the discrimination Native Americans encounter in their country and the social political movement around Peltier and the historical context behind what happened. Filled with great discussions, concepts and presentation, it offers to tell about the issues how Native Americans are being unfairly treated and how the past has affected them.

With great musical choices, presentation, and structure, the filmmakers really achieved on what to tell about the issues and seeing and learning about the corruptions that happened, it was frustrating but something that needed to be said. Now I do say, the documentary does over stay it's welcome as certain moments and contexts felt a bit unbalanced. Which does cause some moments to drag and feeling repetitive of it's nature. I kind of wish some moments had been explored more as well.

Otherwise, a good documentary is a impactful watch.