Yesterday, amid the flurry of news arising from the second inauguration of President Donald Trump, there’s a story you may have missed: Before leaving office, President Joe Biden commuted the life sentence of indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, who will now serve the rest of his punishment at home.
This is important news in a world of indigenous resistance. Peltier is one of the surviving members of the American Indian Movement of the 1960s and 70s, and his 50-year imprisonment spurred a new generation of activists. It is also a topic that is at the center of co-directors David France (“How to survive a plague,” “Welcome to Chechnya,” “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson”) and Jesse Short Bullis new film “Free Leonard Peltierwhich is scheduled to premiere on Sundance Film festival on Monday 27 January. The film’s Sundance blurb advertises that, looking at the controversial conviction of Peltier on two counts of first-degree murder, “a new generation of Native activists is determined to win his freedom before he dies.”
IndieWire learned that yesterday, just a week before the film’s world premiere, the filmmakers went back into the editing room to change the film’s ending and incorporate the latest developments into the finished film. Although Sundance requires filmmakers to submit their final DCPs early so they can be screened, it’s not uncommon for filmmakers to blow deadlines to deal with last-minute technical issues—and there are many horror stories of films being flown in at the last minute— but If you open the edit again, it probably means that the “Free Leonard Peltier” team has some sleepless nights ahead of them.
In addition to exploring the activism surrounding the Free Leonard Peltier movement, the documentary also promises to, using interviews and archival footage (including older interviews with Peltier himself), look at “the events surrounding the 1975 Pine Ridge shooting, in which (Peltier) ) was convicted of of killing two FBI agents—a charge he has denied for 50 years.”
Peltier’s ultimate guilt and potential wrongful conviction have long been a political hot-button issue, only heating up after Biden lost the 2024 election in November, and pressure mounted for him to commute the 80-year-old activist’s convictions before leaving office. Biden’s FBI Director Chris Wray warned publicly the former president opposed commuting Peltier’s sentence, saying it would “hurt the victims’ loved ones and undermine the principles of justice and accountability that our government should represent.”
“I hope these letters are unnecessary and that you will not consider a pardon or commutation,” Wray wrote. “But on behalf of the FBI family, and out of an abundance of caution, I want to make sure our position is clear: Peltier is a remorseless killer, who brutally murdered two of our own — Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams. Granting Peltier some relief from his conviction or sentence is completely unjustified and would be a violation of the rule of law.”
The circumstances surrounding the deaths of Coler and Williams are not quite as black and white, according to many of Peltier’s supporters, who see what happened at Pine Ridge as part of the ongoing 500-year history of abuse against indigenous peoples. Many have questioned the investigation itself and there are a number of civil rights and legal experts who have called the conviction itself unfair. It was a point made again in one December letter, signed by 34 members of Congressincluding US Senator Brian Schatz (Hawaii), chairman of Indian Affairs, who urged Biden to grant Peltier clemency.
