Crips and Bloods: Made in America

In 2000, after retiring from professional skateboarding, Stacy Peralta wrote and directed the critically acclaimed Dogtown and Z-Boys, a chronicle of the birth of modern skateboard culture, which won both the Directors Award and the Audience Award at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. The film then went on to win Best Documentary at the Independent Spirit Awards and was released internationally through Sony Pictures Classics. His next film, Riding Giants, examined surf culture and was the first documentary ever to open Sundance.Crips and Bloods: Made in America was not only Peralta’s most personal project, but also his most difficult. Fifteen years in the making, Crips and Bloods is an insider’s look at a subject that few on the outside know anything about.

Growing up in Los Angeles, Baron Davis’s first love was the game of basketball. With encouragement from his grandmother, Lela Nicholson, Davis excelled on the blacktop courts of his South Central neighborhoods, earning a scholarship to the prestigious Crossroads High School in Santa Monica. Attending school alongside numerous entertainment industry prodigies, he developed a lasting affinity for film and filmmaking and discovered his more artistic side. After seven years in the NBA, Davis formed Verso Entertainment, his own production company. Produced in collaboration with director Stacy Peralta, Crips and Bloods: Made in America is Verso’s first feature documentary.