FILM SERIES
Watch the Cops! Policing New York in the Movies
In concert with Interference Archive’s Defend / Defund exhibition, this series of electrifying and rarely screened films invite us to “watch the cops” with a critical perspective. Made from the late 60s to 90s—as police budgets swelled and violence against poor communities of color intensified—they offer a cinematic survey of the movement to resist police and reallocate resources. The series travels through neighborhoods, city blocks, and community spaces where dreams of freedom clashed, often literally, with the police.
Revealing New York as both a rehearsal space and ground zero of the prison state, Watch the Cops! highlights the geography of policing and the media that redrew the map for our abolitionist future.
Programmed by Pooja Rangan and Brett Story
This intriguing reformist take on the police thriller boasts an all-star cast.
Nuanced portraits of sex workers from a radical courtroom in Queens to 1800s New York.
Cinema shines a light on wrongfully incarcerated people and their battles for justice.
A TV program from William Greaves and a 1966 police training grapple with police reform.
Short films highlight Marsha P. Johnson, the Young Lords, and the fight for housing justice.
Al Pacino shines in this complicated New York classic about a heist gone awry.
A look at Spike Lee’s Bed-Stuy classic pairs with a 16mm snapshot of the neighborhood.