“A riot is the language of the unheard.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
A wave of riots broke out across England in the summer of 2011, spurred by the police shooting of 29-year-old husband and father Mark Duggan. The new documentary The Hard Stop (which takes its name from a British police tactic in which unmarked police cars box in a suspect without warning) follows two of Duggan’s childhood friends as they grapple with his death and the effects of growing up poor and black in a country that regards them as outsiders. It’s “a rare and valuable insight into the anger, alienation, and absolute enmity to the police among many young black men in Tottenham” (Evening Standard). Official selection of the Toronto International Film Festival 2015.