Documentary maker Seth McClellan interviews socially committed teenagers at Little Wound School in Kyle, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota reservation. These kids have reason enough to be disaffected—crime, poverty, racism, the legacy of U.S. depredations against Native American tribes—but they’re hopeful for their community and the wider world precisely because they’re determined to shape the future. McClellan sticks largely to close-ups, letting the students weigh in on subjects from tribal culture to dysfunctional parents, from school spirit to suicide. Stunning aerial shots of the Badlands help illustrate how the Lakota find renewal and purpose: they’ve always viewed themselves as custodians of the earth, not its owners. In English and subtitled Lakota.
Little Wound’s Warriors
0 hour 57 min • 2016
