Full Frame alumnus and award-winner Peter Nicks (The Waiting Room) returns to Oakland for an illuminating vérité profile of the city’s police department and its earnest new chief, who is tasked with ushering the embattled institution out of a decade of controversy and federal scrutiny. Following the chief, his delegation, new recruits, and veteran officers for over two years, the film reveals the challenges of rebuilding and reform in a time of intense, and well-earned, public skepticism. With unique access and remarkable cinematography, this captivating documentary alertly records scandal, stultifying bureaucracy, public relations, and clashes in the streets—forces themselves that exert strain on the department and those it has sworn to protect. Nicks’s discerning and probing study asks, can a connection between the police and the public be drawn with only a thin blue line?  TM

Filmmaker Q&A following screening