Slamdance Film Festival 2009

In this personal and moving documentary, filmmaker Chris Billing investigates the tragic deaths of his adopted Crow Indian brothers and confronts a painful truth that shattered his family. On June 26, 1978, Bobby (13) and Tyler (11) ran away from home; early the next morning, they were struck and killed by a freight train. Their mysterious and sudden deaths sent shockwaves through the tiny, upstate New York community of Little Falls, as no one could understand why Bobby and Tyler had run away from the white, Baptist family that had adopted them and their two biological sisters out of a troubled home on the Crow Reservation in Montana seven years earlier. Their adoptive home – a vast 19th-century Victorian castle – seemed idyllic, but the dark secret discovered by the boys winds its way through the narrative, brought to light these many years later.

Intense, riveting, unbelievable, and upsetting. Lost Sparrow pulls gently at the threads that hold a family together, revealing unexpected and horrifying secrets as the filmmaker pulls the weave of his own family apart.

- Sam Roberts, Director of Film Competitions