On a Knife Edge is a 2017 American documentary film directed by Jeremy Williams and produced by Eli Cane. The film premiered at the 2017 SF Doc Festival, and broadcast nationally on the PBS World show America ReFramed on November 7, 2017. On a Knife Edge is shot in an observational style, following the lives of Guy Dull Knife Jr, and his son, George Dull Knife, as George prepares to become the next leader of his family and becomes politically active in his community. The film is notable for the sheer span of George's life that it covers, documenting a five-year period of George's adolescence. The film was shot on the Pine Ridge Reservation, in Whiteclay, Nebraska, Rapid City, SD, and at Standing Rock. Synopsis The film chronicles the coming-of-age of George Dull Knife as he grows up on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He lives with his father and extended family outside of Kyle, SD and is a freshman at Little Wound High School. He is mostly concerned with avoiding the drugs, alcohol, and gangs that permeate life on the Reservation, but soon becomes involved in social justice campaigns combatting police brutality, illegal alcohol sales, and the Keystone XL Pipeline. A pivotal moment occurs when George is 15, after the alleged mutilation of Vern Traversie, a blind Lakota elder who went to Rapid City Regional Hospital for heart surgery in 2012 and emerged with what appeared to be the letters KKK cut into his torso. Amid the community outrage and public protests, George joins the American Indian Movement. Guy Dull Knife is a veteran of AIM from the 1970s, when their activity peaked with the Wounded Knee Occupation, and becomes a guide for George as he becomes more politically active. Together they form a security group, designed to protect protesters from law enforcement or counter-protesters at rallies and marches. The film follows George's increasing involvement in AIM, with a particular focus on the illegal alcohol sales in Whiteclay, Nebraska. While it is illegal to sell or possess alcohol on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Whiteclay borders the reservation and until September 2017 sold the equivalent of over 4,000,000 cans of beer a year, despite its tiny population of just 12 residents. Much of George's coming of age is shown in the film through his growing role of leadership at AIM protests designed to shut down the alcohol sales at Whiteclay. Towards