Dance Me Outside (1994)

To get into a mechanics’ course, Ryan Black is forced to submit an essay. He chooses to write about the rape and murder of one of his friends by a white man and how his community dealt with the lenient sentence given for the crime. Violence perpetrated against native women is an incredibly underreported subject, but unfortunately here with the story focusing on the antics of Black and his best friend Adam Beach, it gives the feeling that the woman is a secondary character in her own story. Regardless, I appreciate the attempt to bring more native stories to film and with this, it does portray what feels like a genuine community and how its members interact.