Incident at Oglala
An engrossing legal and societal drama based on a court case involving American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, convicted for allegedly killing two FBI agents and another Native American in a shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota in June 1975. The film gives us a vivid picture of the desperately poor Indian reservations of South Dakota, where ramshackle houses prevail, unemployment rates soar, and the landscape can reveal a magnificent vista in one direction or an unconscious drunk in another. Incident at Oglala pulls apart court testimony, highlights discrepancies and reveals that a century after the Massacre at Wounded Knee, Native Americans are still often treated like bad dogs.
––JD
Incident at Oglala: The Leonard Peltier Story
1992
Directed by Michael Apted
$20 VHS
$23 DVD