Family, Secrets, and Tragedy Exhumed in Lost Sparrow

Some questions can never be answered. Some answers are hard to take.

Three decades ago, two Crow Indian brothers ran away from their adoptive home for reasons their family never quite understood. The next day, Bobby and Tyler Billing were found dead on the railroad tracks. Their sudden and mysterious deaths sent shock-waves through a tiny upstate New York community.

Their brother, journalist and filmmaker Chris Billing, set out to investigate what really happened to his family, and to return his brothers’ bodies to the Crow reservation where they were born. The film of his journey is not a fairy tale of redemption, but a gently probing document of love and denial.

Lost Sparrow airs Tuesday, November 16 at 10 PM on Independent Lens (check local listings).