https://www.filmplatform.net/product/law-criminal-justice-films
Considering social policy and theories of justice, and how laws shape and are shaped by political, economic, and cultural forces.
Battleground is an urgently timely window into the intersection of abortion and politics in America, following three women who lead formidable anti-abortion organizations to witness the enormous influence they wield. As the nation faces the end of Roe, the film also depicts those on the front lines of the fierce fight to maintain access.
In this Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary, director Matthew Heineman and executive producer Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”, “Zero Dark Thirty”) gain unprecedented, on-the-ground access to the riveting stories of two modern-day vigilante groups and their shared enemy – the murderous Mexican drug cartels.
DO NOT RESIST is an urgent and powerful exploration of the rapid militarization of the police in the United States.
Starting on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, as the community grapples with the death of Michael Brown, DO NOT RESIST – the directorial debut of DETROPIA cinematographer Craig Atkinson – offers a stunning look at the current state of policing in America and a glimpse into the future. This Tribeca Film Festival winner for Best Documentary puts viewers in the center of the action, – from a ride-along with a South Carolina SWAT team to inside a police training seminar that teaches the importance of “righteous violence”.
ERNIE & JOE: CRISIS COPS follows two police officers with the San Antonio Texas Police Department who are diverting people away from jail and into mental health treatment, one 911 call at a time.
In 1973 Brooklyn, Shu’aib Raheem and three other young African-American men stealing guns for self-defense were cornered for 47 hours by the NYPD, the longest siege in its history. Could visionary police psychologist Harvey Schlossberg convince his superiors to do the unthinkable – negotiate with “criminals” – and save a dozen hostages from a violent bloodbath? In never-before-seen film and eye-opening interviews, HOLD YOUR FIRE has the potential to revolutionize American policing, saving lives using words, not guns.
iHUMAN is a political thriller that explores the creeping expansion of artificial intelligence under an illusion of democracy and freedom of choice. The film follows pioneers on the front lines of the invisible AI revolution, exposing how this technology is being developed and implemented. In iHuman, some of the brightest minds in the AI industry decrypt a roadmap to our future. Who is really holding the code?
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as an American hero: a bridge-builder, a shrewd political tactician, and a moral leader. Yet throughout his history-altering political career, he was often treated by U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies like an enemy of the state. In this virtuosic film, award-winning editor, and director Sam Pollard lays out a detailed account of the FBI surveillance that dogged King’s activism throughout the ’50s and ’60s, fueled by the racist and red-baiting paranoia of J. Edgar Hoover. In crafting a rich archival tapestry, featuring some revelatory restored footage of King, Pollard urges us to remember that true American progress is always hard-won.
At the age of 85, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has developed a breathtaking legal legacy while becoming an unexpected pop culture icon. But without a definitive Ginsburg biography, the unique personal journey of this diminutive, quiet warrior’s rise to the nation’s highest court has been largely unknown, even to some of her biggest fans – until now. RBG is a revelatory documentary exploring Ginsburg’s exceptional life and career from Betsy West and Julie Cohen.
Welcome to Riotsville, USA–a point in American history when the nation’s rulers–politicians, bureaucrats, police–were faced with the mounting militancy of the late 60s, and did everything possible to win the war in the streets. Using training footage of Army-built model towns called “Riotsvilles” where law enforcement were trained to respond to civil disorder, in addition to nationally broadcast news media, the film connects the stagecraft of “law and order” to the real violence of state practice. RIOTSVILLE, USA is a poetic and furious reflection on the rebellions of the 1960s-and the machine that worked to destroy them.
How does a person with three strikes against her rise to the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court? How did this happen despite closed doors and legal and social barriers facing Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the 1950’s? Who made this possible? What personal, social and political forces intersected to make this happen? The film tells the improbable story of how Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who couldn’t get a job despite graduating at the top of her law school class and making Law Review at Harvard and Columbia Law Schools, became an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. It reveals both the public and private sides of a resilient, resourceful woman who survived the hostility of the male universe of government and law to become a revered Justice and icon for gender equality and human rights.
After the 2008 election, a secretive, well-funded partisan initiative poured money into state legislative races in key swing states to gain control of their redrawing electoral maps and redistricting processes. It used high-tech analytics to dramatically skew voting maps based on demographic data, serving the party in power. The result was one of the greatest electoral manipulations in American history, posing a fundamental threat to democracy and exacerbating the already polarized atmosphere in Congress and state houses across the country. Following groups of outraged citizens, the film sees them battle party operatives and an entrenched political establishment to fix a broken system.
Have you ever read the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policies connected to every website you visit, phone call you make, or app you use? Of course you haven’t. But those agreements allow corporations to do things with your personal information you could never even imagine. What are you really agreeing to when you click “I accept”?
The 8th traces Ireland’s campaign to remove the 8th Amendment – a constitutional ban on abortion. It shows a country’s transformation from a conservative state in thrall to the Catholic church to a more liberal secular society. This dramatic story is underscored by a vivid exploration of the wrenching failures that led to this defining moment in Irish history. An urgent narrative, a cautionary tale and a roadmap for progressive reforms in a modern era where authoritarianism is on the rise, The 8th shows a country forging a new progressive path when reproductive rights are threatened all over the world.
In a country where killers are celebrated as heroes, the filmmakers challenge unrepentant death squad leader Anwar Congo and his friends to dramatise their role in genocide. But their idea of being in a movie is not to provide testimony for a documentary: they want to be stars in their favourite film genres—gangster, western, musical. They write the scripts. They play themselves. And they play their victims. This is a cinematic fever dream, an unsettling journey deep into the imaginations of mass-murderers and the shockingly banal regime of corruption and impunity they inhabit.
Enter a hidden third world shadow industry of digital cleaning, where the Internet rids itself of what it doesn’t like: violence, pornography and political content. Here we meet five “digital scavengers” among thousands of people outsourced from Silicon Valley whose job is to delete “inappropriate” content off of the net. In a parallel struggle, we meet people around the globe whose lives are dramatically affected by online censorship. A typical “cleaner” must observe and rate thousands of often deeply disturbing images and videos every day, leading to lasting psychological impacts.
THE FIGHT is an inspiring, emotional insider look at how these important battles are fought and the legal gladiators on the front lines fighting them. Directors Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman, and Eli Despres capture the rollercoaster ride of the thrill and defeat in these deeply human battles. When a mother is separated from her child, a soldier is threatened to lose his career, a young woman’s right to choose is imperiled at the pleasure of a government official, and the ability to exercise our basic right to vote is threatened, the consequences can be devastating to us and to future generations. THE FIGHT celebrates the unsung heroes who fiercely work to protect our freedoms.
From the Academy Award-nominated filmmaking team behind THE INVISIBLE WAR, comes a startling exposé of sexual assault on U.S. campuses, institutional cover-ups and the brutal social toll on victims and their families.
Weaving together verite footage and first-person testimonials, the film follows survivors as they pursue their education and legal justice, despite harsh retaliation, harassment, and pushback.
Casualties of war rage beyond the battlefield. As ranks of women in the American military swell, so do incidents of rape. An estimated 30 percent of servicewomen and at least 1 percent of servicemen are sexually assaulted during their enlistment, not by the enemy, but at the hands of fellow soldiers. With stark clarity and escalating revelations, The Invisible War exposes a rape epidemic in the armed forces, investigating the institutions that perpetuate it as well as its profound personal and social consequences.
The Price of Freedom exposes the hidden past of the American gun debate and reveals how the outsized political and cultural influence of the National Rifle Association divided a nation and changed the course of American history, costing countless lives along the way.
U.S. abortion clinics are fighting to survive. Since 2010, hundreds of laws regulating abortion clinics have been passed by conservative state legislatures, particularly in the south. These restrictions, known as TRAP laws (or Targeted Regulations of Abortion Providers) are spreading across America.
Faced with increased costs of compliance and the alarming fear of violence from protestors, the stakes for the women and men on the frontlines couldn’t be any higher. As the battle heads to the U.S. Supreme Court, TRAPPED follows the struggles of the clinic workers and lawyers fighting to keep abortion safe and legal for millions of American women.
The Atlantic’s first feature documentary is the definitive inside story of the movement that has come to be known as the alt-right. With unprecedented access, White Noise tracks the rise of far-right nationalism by focusing on the lives of three of its main proponents: Mike Cernovich, a conspiracy theorist and sex blogger turned media entrepreneur; Lauren Southern, an anti-feminist, anti-immigration YouTube star; and Richard Spencer, a white-power ideologue. As white-nationalist violence surges in America and across the world, White Noise represents an urgent warning about the power of extremism, and where it’s going next.