What would happen if the people
living the story told it
themselves?
After a late-night police ride-along in Watts, an outsider witnesses a version of the neighborhood that never makes the news — and asks a simple question.
Twenty residents — rival gang members, police officers, students, parents, and victims of violence — are given iPhones and full control over their narratives. Every filmmaker owns their footage.
No script, no central storyteller, no outside voice. Gang members, police officers, and victims sit across the same table — forced to watch each other’s lives, and to decide, together, how their community will be seen.
With the film nearly complete — amid dissent and personal risk — the filmmakers screen it for Watts’ most violent gang leaders, men with more than 200 years of prison time between them. Honest conversations follow. The leaders ask for more screenings. A peace pledge emerges.