It doesn’t need to be said that we’re in the middle of ongoing conversations at the moment about the relationship between the police and public, particularly when it comes to minorities. That’s just one element that makes “The Force” essential viewing. The latest from director Peter Nicks won the Directing Award in the Documentary category at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, and now it’s headed to cinemas.
The compelling film spends two years inside the Oakland Police Department, as they struggle to overcome controversy and reform themselves, just as the Black Lives Matter movement starts to rise. Here’s the official synopsis:
At a powder keg moment in American policing, The Force goes deep inside the embattled Oakland Police Department as it struggles to reform itself amid growing local controversy. Winner of the Documentary Directing Award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, filmmaker Peter Nicks (The Waiting Room) embedded with the department over the course of two years to follow its serial efforts to recast itself. The film focuses on the new chief brought in to effect reform at the very moment the Black Lives Matter movement emerges to demand police accountability and racial justice both in Oakland and across the nation.
“The Force” opens on September 15th in San Francisco and September 22nd in New York and Los Angeles before expanding to select cities.