JUSTICE MATTERS

Lakota Nation vs. United States

JESSE SHORT BULL, LAURA TOMASELLI
USA, 2022
120 minutes, Color
Official website

For the Lakota the Black Hills (He Sapa) are sacred land, so much so that they consider the hills "our relative." Such words matter. With narration by acclaimed Ogala poet Layli Long Soldier, this documentary explores history and the power of language. It deftly navigates a story of betrayal, extermination, assimilation, and the ongoing resilience of the Lakota and other Oceti Sakowin people. Although it is a deep-dive into a painful colonial history, the film is the opposite of heavy. Co-director Laura Tomaselli characterizes it as multi-genre (part Western, part legal thriller) while its lyric visuals adhere to the motto "Film nature like a church." In the end, the words matter, whether they include the original treaties that the U.S. broke before the ink was even dry, or the precisely expressed thinking in this film's intimate interviews that, along with Long Soldier's poem, articulate the Oceti Sakowin experience.—Various sources