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High-Profile Filmmakers Take Aim at U.S. Criminal ‘Justice’ System With Sundance Documentaries
Sundance documentaries from Richard Linklater, Yance Ford and others put U.S. prisons and criminal justice system under fire
“There’s a lot to be outraged by and examined.” Variety spoke with him and other filmmakers such as Chiwetel Ejiofor, Debra Granik and Yance Ford about their Park City projects — when taken together, they paint a devastating and sometimes hopeful picture of contemporary policing, criminal trials, incarceration and rehabilitation. Ford turned that 1992 tragedy — made far worse by harassment, indifferent cops and an all-white grand jury that refused to indict a mechanic who claimed the killing was in self-defense — into a 2017 doc, “Strong Island,” that earned him an Oscar nomination. “This strategy of prosecutors [using rap lyrics] has been ongoing for almost 30 years, and Young Thug just happened to have the [millions] to pay for a private attorney rather than being — and these are very well-intentioned people — stuck with a public defender like hundreds and perhaps thousands of other rappers,” Harper notes.
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