'Wounded Knee' gets big-screen preview at film festival

A scene from 'Wounded Knee'
A scene from the film "Wounded Knee," a documentary that depicts the 1973 siege that took place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Photo from PBS.com

Part of a new PBS series about American Indians is getting a big-screen preview this weekend at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Film Festival. "Wounded Knee" depicts the 1973 siege that took place on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

About 200 armed American Indian Movement leaders and supporters had taken over the town of Wounded Knee, S.D. It's the same site where over 200 Laktoa Sioux were killed in a battle with American Cavalry 83 years earlier, in 1890. The AIM wanted to draw the attenton of the U.S. Government to Native American issues. Instead, their occupation sparked a two-and-a-half month paramilitary standoff with U.S. Marshals and the FBI.

Kevin McKiernan
Journalist Kevin McKiernan was inside the Wounded Knee compound filing reports for MPR and NPR during the standoff. Film he shot during the siege is now part of a new PBS program about the incident. The film is being shown this wekend at the Minneapolis St Paul International Film Festival.
MPR photo/Euan Kerr

The American Indian group eventually surrendered after 71 days, but only after two Indians were killed and 18 wounded along with one U.S. Marshal and an FBI agent.

Kevin McKiernan was the only journalist with an inside view of the standoff. He managed to sneak past an FBI press blackout to report for Minnesota Public Radio and NPR. McKiernan also shot film during the siege and that footage is now a key part of the "We Shall Remain" series for PBS's American Experience. He's in town to present "Wounded Knee" this weekend and he joined Tom Crann to talk about the film.

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