The Pandora’s box has been opened. A new wave of attention is sweeping over the issue of abuse among teenagers in American schools, with Leonardo DiCaprio standing firmly on the side of raising awareness. Unlike the widely discussed Netflix series Adolescence, this film will be a documentary, grounded in real-life cases rather than drawing on collective facts from various stories.
Per Deadline, the eye-opening documentary Nine Little Indians, which has taken nearly ten years to produce and is now in post-production, will shine a light on the dark history of abuse at a U.S. boarding school for Native American children. DiCaprio and his production company, Appian Way, have partnered with Shannon Kring for this powerful project.
The documentary will focus on the tragic experiences of the Charbonneau sisters and their fellow students who endured immense harm at St. Paul’s Indian Mission School in Marty, South Dakota. It will delve into their nearly two-decade-long fight for justice, holding the Catholic Church accountable for the abuse suffered by the survivors, as well as the children who tragically lost their lives at the school. Among the many poignant stories is the heartbreaking account of Geraldine "Gerri" Charbonneau, whose baby, conceived through rape, became one of the victims.
In addition to recounting the Charbonneau sisters' pursuit of justice, the documentary will highlight the efforts of a Northern Cheyenne Indian school cemetery surveyor, working to uncover more unmarked graves at the school. Interviews with former nuns who worked at St. Paul’s, as well as the abbot who oversaw the priests implicated in these horrific crimes, will offer a chilling inside perspective on this dark chapter in history.
American Indian boarding schools, also known more recently as American Indian residential schools, were established in the U.S. from the mid-17th to the early 20th centuries with the primary aim of "civilising" Native American children into Anglo-American culture. These institutions were recently featured in Paramount’s 1923 series and previously in Wes Studi’s 2009 Sundance feature The Only Good Indian.
