COVER Do Not Resist Directed By Craig Atkinson, 72 minutes North American Premiere: Tribeca Film Festival, April 2016 Winner Best Documentary Feature North American Theatrical Premiere: Film Forum. New York, NY, Sept. 2016 Link to Trailer: https://vimeo.com/178977261 Link to Still Photos: https://www.hightail.com/download/cUJXb2VBUzhqV0JFQmNUQw Website and Social Media: www.donotresistfilm.com www.twitter.com/donotresistfilm www.facebook.com/donotresistfilm www.instagram.com/donotresistfilm PRODUCTION – VANISH FILMS: [email protected] EDUCATIONAL DISTRIBUTOR – RO*CO FILMS: [email protected] Page 2 of 36 FILM FESTIVAL SELECTION AND AWARDS 2016 Tribeca Film Festival – Grand Jury Best Documentary Feature Award 2016 Hot Docs Film Festival 2016 Montclair Film Festival 2016 Maryland Film Festival 2016 DOXA Film Festival 2016 Telluride Mountainfilm Festival 2016 Human Rights Watch Film Festival New York 2016 AFI Silverdocs 2016 Indianapolis Film Festival – Grand Jury Best Documentary Feature Award 2016 Traverse City Film Festival 2016 Dokufest Kosovo - Grand Jury Best International Doc Feature Nominee 2016 Camden Film Festival 2016 Zurich Film Festival – Grand Jury Best International Doc Feature Nominee 2016 Bergen International Film Festival 2016 Downtown LA Film Festival – Grand Jury Best Documentary Feature Award 2016 Mill Valley Film Festival 2016 Hot Springs Film Festival 2016 Emerson LA Film & Media Festival 2016 Chicago Film Festival 2016 Philadelphia Film Festival – Audience Award Honorable Mention 2016 Dok Leipzig 2016 Denver Film Festival – Maysles Brothers Best Documentary Award 2016 Brattleboro Film Festival 2016 Kassel Dokfest 2016 Stockholm Film Festival 2016 MIRA Film Festival 2016 Watch DOCS, Human Rights in Film, Warsaw, Poland 2017 Cinema Eye Honors – Outstanding Achievement in a Debut Feature Film Nominee 2017 DocPoint Film Festival, Helsinki, Finland 2017 Human Rights Weekend, Amsterdam, NL 2017 Frozen River Film Festival 2017 Pan African Film Festival 2017 Bellingham Human Rights Film Festival 2017 Sedona International Film Festival 2017 Social Impact and Media Awards – Best Doc Feature Editing Award 2017 American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award – Documentary Finalist 2017 Julien Dubuque International FF– Grand Jury Best Doc Feature Nominee Page 3 of 36 SYNOPSIS LOGLINE DO NOT RESIST is an urgent and powerful exploration of the rapid militarization of the police in the United States. SHORT SYNOPSIS This urgent documentary explores the militarization of local police departments—in their tactics, training, and acquisition of equipment—since 9/11. With unprecedented access to police conventions, equipment expos, and officers themselves, filmmaker Craig Atkinson, the son of a SWAT team member, has crafted an eye-popping nonpartisan look at the changing face of law enforcement in America. LONG SYNOPSIS 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. The 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 and inside a police training seminar that teaches the importance of "righteous violence" to the floor of a congressional hearing on the proliferation of military equipment in small-town police departments - before exploring where controversial new technologies, including predictive policing algorithms, could lead the field next. Page 4 of 36 DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT In April 2013, I watched the police response in the days following the Boston Marathon bombing in awe. I had never associated the vehicles, weapons and tactics used by officers after the attack with domestic police work. I grew up with the War on Drugs era of policing: My father was an officer for 29 years in a city bordering Detroit and became a SWAT commander when his city formed a team in 1989. What I wasn't familiar with, since my father's retirement from the force in 2002, was the effect the War on Terror had on police work. Making this film was an attempt to understand what had changed. Knowing that interviews with experts would do little to communicate the on- the-ground reality of American policing, we instead set out to give the viewer a direct experience. We attended police conventions throughout the country and started conversations with SWAT officers at equipment expos and a seemingly endless cascade of happy hours, offering the only thing we could: an authentic portrayal of whatever we filmed together. On more than one occasion, we were on our way to the airport, camera in hand, only to receive a phone call from our contact in the police department instructing us not to come. Our access seemed to be directly tied to the amount of negative press the police were getting at that time. It became increasingly difficult to get access after the events in Ferguson, and there were many times we thought we would have to stop production altogether. The urgency of the situation, however, motivated us to continue. We noticed a trend in early 2014 of police departments being solicited by technology companies offering new tools to help alleviate dwindling Page 5 of 36 operating budgets and loss of personnel. One technology provider we filmed with offered the same IBM platform the NSA uses to collect web communications to police departments, for as little as $1,000 per year. Throughout 2014 and 2015, we watched as departments throughout the county adapted the technologies without any guidelines or policy directives governing their use. At times, the companies would make the chief of police sign a nondisclosure agreement preventing them from telling their communities they even had the technologies. The mantra we would continue to hear was that the police couldn't let terrorists know the tools they were using to intercept their plots. The problem is, in three years of filming police, there was never an opportunity to use the equipment on domestic terrorism. Instead, the military surplus equipment and surveillance technology were used on a day-to-day basis to serve search warrants, almost always for drugs. In hindsight it's not hard to understand how we arrived at the current state of policing in America. Since 9/11, the federal government has given police departments more than $40 billion in equipment with no stipulations on how it should be deployed or any reporting requirements. Additionally, the federal government created a loophole that allowed police departments to keep the majority of the money and property seized during search warrants to supplement their operating revenue. If a police department makes a portion of their operating revenue from ticketing citizens or seizing their assets, then police officers become de facto tax collectors. We met many officers who said they didn't sign up for that. Everyone wants to know what my father thinks of the film, and in all honesty, I think it pains him. It's hard to watch the profession you dedicated your life to evolve into something completely unrecognizable. During the 13 years my Page 6 of 36 father was on SWAT from 1989-2002, his team conducted 29 search warrants total. Compare that to today, when departments of a similar size we filmed conducted more than 200 a year. As we begin to share the film, the overwhelming response from audiences has been shock and disbelief. I can say that we were just as shocked while filming the material. Going in, we had no idea what we were going to find. We kept thinking we were creating opportunities to film with departments that would show the full spectrum of the SWAT experience, but time and time again, we found ourselves inside homes searching for things that we never found. It's my hope that both community members and officers working hard to challenge the culture of policing within their departments use this film to illustrate the dire need for change. Page 7 of 36 Q&A WITH DIRECTOR CRAIG ATKINSON Q: Could you talk about your own personal connection to law enforcement, within your family? A: My father was a police officer for 29 years, outside of Detroit, and he was a SWAT officer for 13 of those years. Growing up, he used to take me on SWAT training exercises. When I was really young, I’d be a hostage, and when I got a little bit older, I would be an armed assailant, so it would be me vs. the SWAT team in an abandoned factory in Detroit. It was a way for him to create greater obstacles for his team, and it was very fun as a kid to go and participate in something like that. So I was relatively familiar with SWAT and tactical teams, going into this film, but I think that just allowed me to empathize with the police officers, because my dad was a very upstanding officer, and I know his heart and I know he was always trying to do it right, and I know there are a lot of cops out there trying to do it right as well. Q: How does your father feel about the militarization of the police? A: Well, I can tell you what he thought about the film. He was devastated by the film. You know, he dedicated his heart and soul to the profession and what he’s observing on-screen in the film is his profession devolve into something that he could never personally identify with or ever want to be a part of. So it was very difficult for him to watch. Q: How did you get access to film the scenes in Do Not Resist? A: We had constant access issues. If you can imagine every time you want to shoot a scene, it’s a six-week access battle.