While news stations attempt to cover the Black Lives Matter movement and the injustice stemming from its formation, the most thorough documents tend to be from those embedded deeper in the heart of the action. Director Sabaah Folayan and co-director Damon Davis, who were on the ground in Ferguson, captured the uprising in Whose Streets?. After being one of our favorite films at Sundance earlier this year, it will now arrive this summer, and the first trailer has landed.
We said in our review, “Dedicated to Michael Brown Jr., Whose Streets? is an alarming and vital documentary chronicling the grassroots formation of Black Lives Matter as well as efforts in Ferguson. A narrow document of time and place, it allows the story to unfold as it did on a local level — in a clutter of confusion, tweets, and amateur video as the Ferguson Police Department show up with guns and tanks to what starts as a peaceful protest.”
Check out the trailer below.
Told by the activists and leaders who live and breathe this movement for justice, Whose Streets? is an unflinching look at the Ferguson uprising. When unarmed teenager Michael Brown is killed by police and left lying in the street for hours, it marks a breaking point for the residents of St. Louis, Missouri. Grief, long-standing racial tensions and renewed anger bring residents together to hold vigil and protest this latest tragedy.
Empowered parents, artists, and teachers from around the country come together as freedom fighters. As the national guard descends on Ferguson with military grade weaponry, these young community members become the torchbearers of a new resistance.
Filmmakers Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis know this story because they are the story. Whose Streets? is a powerful battle cry from a generation fighting, not for their civil rights, but for the right to live.
Whose Streets? opens on August 11.