Shout! Studios Acquires Cannes-Bound Dakota Pipeline Pic ‘On Sacred Ground’ Starring William Mapother, David Arquette & Amy Smart

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Shout! Studios has acquired North American rights to Concourse Media’s drama On Sacred Ground, starring William Mapother (Lost), David Arquette (Scream franchise) and Amy Smart (Stargirl), with plans for a strategic launch of the pic across all major entertainment platforms, beginning with a theatrical day-and-date debut in the first quarter of 2023.

The multi-platform entertainment distribution and production arm of Shout! Factory will also screen the film on over 1,000 college campuses, as a means of promoting its underlying message of equality and the importance of upholding indigenous rights.On Sacred Ground follows Daniel (Mapother), a journalist and Afghanistan War military veteran, and Elliot (Arquette), an oil company executive, who find themselves on opposite sides of the fight during the 2016 construction of the contentious Dakota Access Pipeline, which runs through the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, land that is owned by the Lakota “Sioux” Tribe.

As the story unfolds, Daniel starts to align himself more with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe than the oil company he was hired to write about favorably, and the two characters go down separate paths as the events unfold during one of the most heated protests and confrontation with Native American tribes in modern U.S.

history.Protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline occurred at several places because of concerns about its impact on the environment and to sites sacred to Native Americans.