The Force
(DVD) 

Originally produced as a motion picture in 2017.

Program content: ©2017.

Funded by JustFilms.

Includes trailer.

Composer, Justin Melland ; cinematographer, Peter Nicks ; editor, Lawrence Lerew.

Beginning in 2014, this film chronicles two years with the Oakland Police Department, which, in 2003, was put under federal oversight for misconduct and civil rights abuses. Relations between the department and the community are explored in the wake of nationally publicized police shootings and the advent of the Black Lives Matter Movement.

"Sprawling, immediate, and complex, Peter Nicks's verité documentary moves like a pulsing, timely thriller. In 2014, after over a decade of federal monitoring for misconduct and civil rights abuses, the Oakland Police Department hires Chief Sean Whent ... in hopes of bridging a historically tense divide between its officers and the community they serve. The Force captures everything; it hovers over Oakland's evening skies and rides inside speeding police vehicles, granting viewers breathless firsthand access to some of law enforcement's most dangerous jobs. With fly-on-the-wall intimacy, we see a department trapped in transition, desperate to shed its corrupt image but also challenged by an increasingly organized and urgent Black Lives Matter movement erupting right outside its doorstep"--Container.

DVD; NTSC, Region 1; widescreen, 1.78:1 aspect ratio; 5.1 surround, 2.0 stereophonic.

Closed-captioned in English.

Sundance Film Festival, Directing Award, U.S. Documentary; SF Film Festival, Best Bay Area Documentary Feature; HotDocs 2017, official selection; AFI Docs, official selection