Hulu picks up ABC News Studios doc ‘Sound Of The Police’ for streaming debut

Hulu in the US has picked up Sound Of The Police, a feature documentary from ABC News Studios, exploring the fraught relationship between Black communities and the police, for its streaming debut.

The Hulu original film is directed by Stanley Nelson and co-directed by Valerie Scoon. Produced by Firelight Films for ABC News Studios, it will have a preview screening at the BlackStar Film Festival, followed by its official world premiere at the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival, before it begins streaming exclusively on Hulu on 11 August.

Framed by some of the most recent conflicts between Black Americans and police officers, which garnered national media attention, the film traces the country’s complex racial history that set the path for policing in Black communities and fuels the ongoing conflict between African American communities and law enforcement.

From the origins of the first police forces in the South during slavery to the mob violence that erupted against African Americans in the North after the great migration to the more recent high-profile cases forever etched in America’s collective conscience, Sound Of The Police tells the story of a troubled, complex and volatile relationship and exactly how the country got to this point.

Marcia Smith and Keith Brown are executive producing for Firelight Films. Jacqueline Glover serves as executive producer for ABC News Studios.

“This film couldn’t be more timely, but it also closely connects to much of the history that I’ve explored in my past work – from the Civil War-era slave patrols, the advent of Jim Crow at the turn of the century, the uprisings against police brutality in the latter half of the 20th century to the many acts of police violence against African Americans that we’ve witnessed in the media in recent times,” said Nelson.

ABC News Studios is behind original titles including documentaries Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, The Lady Bird Diaries, and Aftershock.

Firelight Films, meanwhile, produced Attica for Showtime; Tulsa Burning: The 1921 Race Massacre for the History Channel; and Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy for Netflix.

Recent Hulu factual commissions include an order for an unscripted series exploring the personal life of actor, comedian and singer Wayne Brady and his family, as well as a true crime docuseries exploring the six-year journey from Sherri Papini’s disappearance to her arrest.