March 23, 2021

Sisters Rising is an urgent call to action, a gorgeous portrait of women acting in solidarity, and a demand for tribal sovereignty and self-determination as the necessary step towards ending violence against Indigenous women in the United States.

“The abhorrent violence that is a constant in the lives of Indigenous peoples impacts Indigenous women first,” says Co-producer Jaida Grey Eagle (Ogala Lakota), “We are on the frontlines of an ongoing legacy of violent colonization, and it is vitally important that the world see and hear us.”

Native American women are 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual assault than all other American women. 1 in 3 Native women report having been raped during her lifetime and 86% of the offenses are committed by non-Native men. These perpetrators exploit gaps in tribal jurisdictional authority and target Native women as ‘safe victims’. SISTERS RISING follows six women who refuse to let this pattern of violence continue in the shadows: a tribal cop in the midst of the North Dakota oil boom, an attorney fighting to overturn restrictions on tribal sovereignty, a teacher of Indigenous women’s self-defense, grassroots advocates working to influence legislative change, and the author of the first anti-sex trafficking code to be introduced to a reservation’s tribal court. Their stories shine an unflinching light on righting injustice on both an individual and systemic level.