Incident at Oglala

A documentary examining the killing of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge reservation on 26 June 1975 and the case that followed. It happened during a firefight. Tension in the area was severe at the time: the conflict between the American Indian Movement and the tribal administration had run for years and deaths had become ordinary. Three men were tried. Two were acquitted on grounds of self-defence. The third, Leonard Peltier, was tried separately and given two life sentences. What the documentary does is open the file step by step: changes in witness statements, how the ballistics report was used in court, and documents the defence could not obtain are shown one by one. Peltier speaks in the film himself. Michael Apted directed; Robert Redford is among the producers and provides the narration. Apted also made a fiction film drawn from the same case. One of the important examples of its kind for anyone who likes miscarriage-of-justice files and investigative documentary. For a viewer expecting an impartial presentation, the film adopts the defence's view and does not hide it.