A City In The Forest

A private police foundation plans to raze an Atlanta urban forest to build “Cop City”, the largest police training facility in the country. A diverse movement defends the forest, fighting environmental racism, authoritarian repression, and police violence.

The film’s visual approach will be a quilt-like texture that mirrors the movement itself: decentralized and composed of various perspectives. We will blend and incorporate various hi-fi and lo-fi mediums — everything from digital 6k to 16mm film, mixing in iPhone footage, user-generated content, and news formats — embracing variable aspect ratios and layered frames, including 35mm still photography. We use animation and 3D models to aid in depicting pivotal moments, including the December and January forest raids, the Cop City building plans, and the forest. A few of our characters will be rotoscoped, so that, despite their anonymity, each character will have a bespoke visual style.

Co-Directors | Lev Omelchenko and Nolan Huber-Rhoades