Just eight days after Leonard Peltier—a Native American activist imprisoned for nearly 50 years—received a historic pardon, Free Leonard Peltier premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, capturing a pivotal moment in the fight for justice.
In this special conversation, Sundance Collab brings together the visionary creative team behind the film: co-directors David France (How to Survive a Plague) and Jesse Short Bull (Lakota Nation vs. United States), along with producer Jhane Myers (Prey).
The filmmakers will share their urgent and deeply personal journey in crafting the documentary, including:
Advocacy through film – Their push for a presidential pardon and how storytelling became a tool for justice.
Breaking new ground in AI-driven filmmaking – How they used AI-generated imagery and audio to reconstruct pivotal moments with no archival footage.
A race against time – The rapid updates made to the film in the wake of Peltier’s release.
A larger movement on screen – How Free Leonard Peltier fits into the evolving story of Native American activism in film.
Join us for a behind-the-scenes look at a documentary that is not just a film but a powerful act of historical reckoning.
If you would benefit from an accommodation to fully participate in this event, please complete this form, contact us at (435) 776-7790, or email us at accessibility@sundance.org to discuss your specific requests. Every effort will be made to accommodate advance requests; requests made within 5 days of the event may not be guaranteed.
Live event registration for this Sundance Collab online event is free of charge. A recording of this event will be posted to our Video Library the next business day following the event. All registered attendees can watch the recording for two business days after it is posted. After that, on-demand access to the recording can be purchased for $10.
JHANE MYERS (Comanche and Blackfeet Nations) is an Emmy award winning filmmaker, Producer Guild of America nominee in 2023 for the six time Primetime Emmy nominated and winning “Prey” (20th Century/Disney), and Sundance Alumni, recognized for her passion and dedication to films surrounding preserving the legacies of Native language, human rights and Communities. Myers is currently a Gotham-Cannes 2024 producer fellow and is producing a documentary on the longest serving US political prisoner and Native American activist Leonard Peltier (Public Square Films) and a narrative feature titled “Will to Win” (Kirkpatrick & Kinslow Productions).
more...David France is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, New York Times bestselling author, and award-winning investigative journalist, France directed HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE (2012), which received Academy and Emmy nominations and a Peabody Award. His 2017 film, THE DEATH & LIFE OF MARSHA P. JOHNSON, a Netflix Original Documentary, won the Outfest “Freedom Award” and a special jury recognition from Sheffield International Documentary Festival. He won a BAFTA, Peabody, Teddy, and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights award for WELCOME TO CHECHNYA (2020), which premiered at Sundance. David's latest film, HBO’s HOW TO SURVIVE A PANDEMIC (2022), won The Cinema for Peace Award on Global Health 2022 and an Emmy award for Outstanding Science and Technology Documentary.
more...Jesse Short Bull (Member of Oglala Sioux Tribe) is a writer and director with a deep connection to his home in the Badlands of South Dakota. LAKOTA NATION VS. UNITED STATES (2022), his most recent film, premiered at Tribeca in 2022 and has won multiple festival awards. The recipient of a fellowship from the Sundance Documentary Fund, Short Bull is also the first Indigenous filmmaker to ever be named to the prestigious DOC NYC Shortlist program. A graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts, Short Bull previously received a 2016 Sundance Institute Native American and Indigenous Program Development Grant and also attended the Creative Producing Summit at Sundance.
more...Moderator | Digital Course & Event Producer
Soheil Rezayazdi is a Digital Course & Event Producer at the Sundance Institute, where he produces multi-session courses, master classes, filmmaker Q&As, and other digital programs for Sundance Collab. Prior to Sundance, Soheil served as the Nonfiction Programs Manager at the Gotham Film & Media Institute. He oversaw the Gotham’s core documentary programs: the Documentary Feature Lab, the Spotlight on Documentaries project market, and the Documentary Development Initiative in partnership with HBO Documentary Films. Soheil has worked with emerging filmmakers since 2015, when he began a seven-year tenure at the Columbia University MFA Film Program. At Columbia he managed the Columbia University Film Festival (CUFF), the Dr. Saul and Dorothy Kit Film Noir Festival, and the Carla Kuhn Memorial Speaker Series. Soheil is also a freelance writer on film and pop culture with articles in Indiewire, McSweeney’s, Vice, Filmmaker Magazine, Documentary Magazine, Paper, Paste, and elsewhere. He has also served as an external reviewer for artist programs operated by Creative Capital, Kartemquin Pictures, Chicken & Egg Pictures, and the International Documentary Association. A native of Iran, he holds an MA in journalism and a BA in film studies from the University of Iowa.
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