Film explores the tragic death of two Crow boys and family’s search for redemption
By Gale Courey Toensing
Filmmaker Chris Billing was 16 years old when his adopted Crow brothers Bobby, 13, and Tyler, 11, were killed on June 27, 1978. Their deaths haunted him for years.
When Billing set out 30 years later to make a film about his lost brothers, his goal was to investigate the unanswered questions about their sudden and mysterious deaths–why did the seemingly happy well-adjusted boys run away from home that day? Where were they going? Why were they on the train tracks?
“Lost Sparrow,” Billing’s powerful and personal film, succeeds in unraveling the mystery surrounding Bobby and Tyler, but in doing so it unveils a family secret that led directly to the boys’ tragic deaths.
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Crow woman happy to discover roots, tell her story in film
The first time Janelle Standsoverbull heard the words, “Lost Sparrow,” her grandmother explained that it referred to Native American children like her who lost their culture when they are taken off the reservation.
It was 1995 and Standsoverbull was 25 years old and making her first trip to the Crow Reservation to reconnect with her biological family. Her grandmother’s words planted the idea with Standsoverbull that her story should be told.
The film, directed by her brother through adoption, Chris Billing, was released in 2009 and traveled the film circuit, screening at Slamdance, a movie festival associated with Sundance, and shown in 2010 in the award-winning PBS series, “Independent Lens.”