BIG CROW is a vérité-style documentary that describes contemporary life on an American Indian Reservation through a girls high school basketball team. Part biography and part social commentary, the film digs deep to combine archival footage with extensive interviews of the people who knew SuAnne best without shying away from the brutal history that created the pressure cooker that is “The Rez” today.

BIG CROW is a story about the power of hope in the most destitute place in America - South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Found in the poorest county in America, rampant drug, alcohol, and sexual abuse drive the highest teen suicide rate in the country. Access to healthy food and health care is virtually non-existent, and the Lakota continue to experience the oppressive racism that outlawed their religion, language, and traditions 130 years ago. It’s possible that there has never been a people more in need of a hero than SuAnne’s Lakota tribe.

By age 14, SuAnne Big Crow had become one of South Dakota’s best basketball players, leading her Pine Ridge Lady Thorpes to become the first ever Native American state champions. By age 17, her social activism had made her a household name across the Great Plains. Thirty years after her tragic death, SuAnne’s pride in her people continues to galvanize the Lakota in their fight to save their language and reclaim their culture.