Third Act
As father and son, Asian American filmmakers Robert and Tadashi Nakamura use their shared medium to explore generational trauma, expressing previously silenced emotions.
Down a Dark Stairwell
A Chinese American cop shoots and kills an innocent black man; suddenly two marginalized communities must navigate an uneven criminal justice system together.
- Series
- Independent Lens
- Premiere Date
- April 12, 2021
- Length
- 90 minutes
- Funding Initiative
- Diversity Development Fund
- Open Call
Director
Ursula Liang
Ursula Liang is a journalist and has worked for outlets like The New York Times Op-Docs, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, and ESPN The Magazine. Her debut 9-Man aired on America ReFramed. Liang also works for The 2050 Group, is a founding member of the Filipino American Museum, and sits on the advisory board of The Dynasty Project.
- Other ITVS Films
- Third Act
Producer
Rajal Pitroda
Rajal Pitroda is a producer of fiction and nonfiction films. She most recently produced Down a Dark Stairwell, which premiered at the 2020 True/False Film Festival. Her work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, Black Public Media, Firelight Media, Chicken & Egg Pictures, the Tribeca Film Institute, SFFILM, and others.
- Other ITVS Films
- The Gas Station Attendant
- Higher 15
- You Don't Know My Name
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The Film
On a fall day in 2014, Peter Liang, a Chinese American police officer, shot and killed an innocent, unarmed black man named Akai Gurley. Unfolding in the dark stairwell of a Brooklyn housing project, the shooting inflamed the residents of New York City and thrust two marginalized communities into the uneven criminal justice system together. In the wake of Gurley’s death, cries of police brutality rang out to join a chorus protesting the recent police killings of two other unarmed black men in Staten Island and Ferguson, Missouri. Liang, 28, had joined a high-decibel national conversation about race and the justice system, one that got louder and angrier just days later when an officer in Cleveland, Ohio, shot and killed a 12-year-old African American boy playing with a toy gun. In this raging, anguished debate, a rallying point was the pronounced pattern of police officers, mostly white, avoiding criminal prosecution. Liang, however, was hit with a charge of manslaughter and, triggering a fresh wave of debate, became the first NYPD officer in over a decade to hear a guilty verdict in such a case.
