American Outrage

Until 1973, life was hard but satisfying for Carrie and Mary Dann, feisty Western Shoshone sisters who ranch on their ancestral homestead in beautiful but barren north central Nevada. Like most Western ranchers, the sisters graze their livestock outside their ranch on the open range. That range is part of 60 million acres recognized as Western Shoshone land by the United States government in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley.

One morning in 1973, the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) informed the Danns that their animals were trespassing, trespassing on U.S. Public Land. The following year the U.S. sued the Danns for trespass and set off a dispute between the Dann sisters and the United States that’s raged for 35 years, to the Supreme Court and beyond, to the United Nations.

Besides lawsuits, there have been five terrifying livestock roundups by hordes of armed federal marshals in which the BLM confiscated a thousand Dann horses and cattle. “American Outrage” asks WHY? Why would the United States spend 35 years and millions of dollars to prosecute and persecute two elderly sisters grazing a few hundred horses and cows in a desolate desert?

The BLM says the sisters are degrading the land. Carrie Dann says the U.S. wants the resources hidden below her Mother Earth. Shoshone land is the second largest gold producing area in the world. She also questions the relationship between the U.S. government and multinational gold corporations.

The U.S. courts decided against the Western Shoshone, but in March, 2006, in a landmark decision, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) found the United States did not comply with international human rights norms. They requested that the U.S. freeze, desist, and stop all actions against the Western Shoshone, rescind all notices already inflicted on them, and initiate an immediate dialogue with the Western Shoshone. The Western Shoshone waited anxiously to hear from the U.S. Three weeks later, the United States announced plans to detonate the largest ever open-air chemical bomb at the Nevada Test Site on Western Shoshone ancestral lands.

Contrasting the Dann sisters' personal lives with their political actions, “American Outrage” demonstrates that justice, in the United States is still not blind when it comes to Native Americans.

FILM FESTIVAL AWARDS

San Luis Obispo Ind. Film Festival (OLOL)
Best Feature Documentary

American Indian Film Festival (OLOL)
Best Feature Documentary

Worldfest (OLOL)
Silver Remi

Mountainflm in Telluride
Audience Award &
Spirit & Advocacy Award

Ashland Ind. Film Festival (AO)
Audience Award for Best Documentary

Boulder International Film Festival 
Best Environmental Film

Frozen River Film Festival 
Audience Award  &
Jury Award: Best Film

Asheville Film Festival
Audience Choice Award

Montreal Indigenous Film Festival
Grand Prize

2009 Telly Award
Best Videography

Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival
Honorable Mention: Best Film

Montana Cine
Golden Cine &
Best Documentary under $100,000. budget

Fargo Film Festival
Best Indigenous Voices Award