AMERICAN GENOCIDE

In the week leading up to a search for mass graves, two Native American investigators examine troubling events around a former Catholic Indian boarding school on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation.

Two Native American women, one a journalist and the other an activist, launch a deeply personal investigation into events around a former boarding school on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation. The seemingly progressive school faculty is looking to address their dark history by organizing a science-based search for possible mass graves on their campus. It seems well intentioned and even noble. But further conversations with boarding school abuse survivors, that seem to populate every single family in the community, cause our investigators to question if they have been meeting with the enemy.

Crystal and Lashay meet with progressive community leaders who are combating the Catholic church with the strongest weapon they have: their culture. They are locked in a battle of wills with Red Cloud school and what they see as systemic leeching off-of their people. For a better understanding of the fissure between Catholic and Lakota, the investigators travel with one of the leaders to his dining room table, where three generations of abuse survivors, male and female, describe their ordeals. The investigators are left wondering if they could even trust the findings that the school will hand down in the grave search.

Crystal and Lashay set out to clear any doubts they have around the integrity of the search of the school grounds. This leads them to the eccentric scientist who operates the ground penetrating radar. She’s Native American, determined, and despite her cutting-edge technology, swears her allegiance is ONLY to the “lost and stolen children” that she searches for under former boarding schools around the country. They also encounter the wisened elder who will perform a prayer over the grounds. He claims to have perfectly merged Lakota and Catholicism via quantum physics. It is an enlightening and unexpected journey into the deep spirituality that looms over the proceedings.

The air is heavy as Crystal and Lashay arrive at Red Cloud Indian School on the day the ground will be scanned for mass graves. All of the characters we have met along the way have descended on the campus with their own agendas. Some want answers, some want solidarity and some want conflict. It is an explosive situation that is exacerbated by the surprise arrival of high ranking government officials. After this episode, nothing will be the same.