The Force

Premiered January 22, 2018

Directed by

Peter Nicks

Go deep inside the long-troubled Oakland Police Department as it struggles with demands for reform during tumultuous times.

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About the Documentary

At a powder keg moment in American policing, The Force presents a fly-on-the-wall look deep inside the long-troubled Oakland Police Department as it struggles to confront federal demands for reform, a popular uprising following events in Ferguson, Missouri, and an explosive sex scandal.

Filmmaker Pete Nicks embedded with the department over the course of two years to follow OPD’s serial efforts to recast itself. The film spotlights the new chief, hailed as a reformer, who is brought into 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 also follows the journey of young cops in the Police Academy who are learning how to police in a new era of transparency and accountability. Out on the street, the camera gets up close as rookie and veteran officers alike face an increasingly hostile public where dueling narratives surround each use of force. Under scrutiny as never before, these officers respond to a constant flood of 911 calls, and the film reveals the wide gulf between how cops see themselves and how they are seen by the public.

Despite growing public distrust, the OPD begins garnering national attention as a model of police reform. But just as the department is on the verge of a breakthrough, the man charged with turning the department around faces the greatest challenge of his career when a scandal breaks out.

The Filmmakers

Peter Nicks is an Emmy Award-winning shooter/director known for his courageous cinema vérité style. He directed and produced The Waiting Room, which was released theatrically to critical acclaim, aired on Independent Lens, and won numerous awards including an Independent Spirit Award. Nicks, a 2015 United States Artist Fellow, is in the midst of his trilogy of timely, immersive films exploring the interconnected narratives of health care, criminal justice and education in Oakland, CA. The Force premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival where Nicks won the Award for Best Director, US Documentary.

Linda Davis is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker who produced The Waiting Room (Independent Lens), a vérité portrait of a day in the life at a public hospital in Oakland, California, which received critical recognition and an Independent Spirit Award nomination for best documentary. She also produced The Kill Team (also Independent Lens), about a soldier in Afghanistan who attempted to report war crimes committed by his platoon, which won Best Documentary Feature at Tribeca in 2013 and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Journalism. Her experience includes work on several feature-length documentaries, including The Rape of Europa and Jon Else’s Wonders Are Many: The Making of Doctor Atomic.

Lawrence is an Emmy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker with a passion for character-driven narratives that strive for emotional truth, cinematic beauty, and cultural relevance. He is best known for the Oscar-Shortlisted film The Waiting Room (2012) as well as The Force, which premiered at Sundance in 2017.

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