The Force

Peter Nicks spent two years inside the Oakland Police Department. The department had been under federal oversight since a civil rights case in 2003 and was required to reform. Over the same stretch the protests after Ferguson grew, and from inside came a sexual exploitation scandal involving officers; the chief resigned. The film is cinema vérité: it reads no indictment and mounts no defence, it stays in the rooms and on the patrols. The camera watches the training of new officers and the anger on the street at the same time, and at a certain point the two meet. Nicks won best director in the US documentary competition at Sundance in 2017.