A forthcoming Netflix documentary is shedding light on the decades-long campaign to secure freedom for Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement leader who became the United States’ longest-serving political prisoner. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival just one week after President Joe Biden commuted Peltier’s life sentence on January 20, 2025, with only 14 minutes remaining in his term.
Peltier, an octogenarian and icon of Native American resistance, had spent nearly 50 years behind bars since his conviction for the 1975 killings of two FBI agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. He has consistently maintained his innocence, and his trial has been widely criticized as corrupt and unfair.
Directors David France and Jesse Short Bull were present outside the Florida prison facility where Peltier was held on the day of the commutation, alongside numerous activists and legal advocates who had fought for his release. France later recalled that there was initially a “sinking feeling” that the president might not grant clemency before leaving office.
The documentary captures the emotional journey of Peltier’s case, which was set to conclude with a different outcome when it debuted at Sundance. Had the commutation not occurred, the film would have ended with Peltier still incarcerated and awaiting any possibility of returning home to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa reservation in North Dakota.
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