(T)ERROR

The documentary films one FBI operation from both sides at once. On one side is Saeed Torres: in his sixties, a former Black Panther, informing for the Bureau for years and doing it for money. On the other side is the target, a man named Khalifah al-Akili, believed to have been radicalised. The crew films each of them separately and neither knows the other is on camera. As the operation runs, the question that surfaces is whether this man is committing a crime or being walked into one. Lyric R. Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe direct; ninety-three minutes. It won the special jury prize for a first feature at Sundance in 2015. The use of informants is among the most contested methods in American counterterrorism, and the film shows that argument from inside a single case.