(Photo by Ted Soqui/Corbis via Getty Images)

LA 92 PREMIERS IN ST. LOUIS

Produced by two-time Academy Award® winner Simon Chinn and Emmy® award-winner Jonathan Chinn, with original music by acclaimed composers

Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans

Using only archive material drawn from more than 1000 Hours of powerful footage,

LA 92 reconstructs the tumultuous days that changed America

LA 92 premieres at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 21, followed by a multi-city tour, theatrical release in NY and LA and broadcast debut on National Geographic

(WASHINGTON, D.C. – March 30, 2017) – Ferguson. Baltimore. Sanford, Florida.  The Los Angeles Riots may have taken place a quarter century ago but the nation continues to find itself in a cycle of heated discussion over racial oppression, police brutality, and socioeconomic inequality.

Now, 25 years later, National Geographic Documentary Films presents LA 92, a riveting look back at the controversial Rodney King trial and subsequent protests, violence, and looting of the city. Viewed from a multitude of vantage points through visceral and rarely seen archival footage, the film brings a fresh perspective to a pivotal moment that reverberates to this day.  Produced by Lightbox’s two-time Academy Award winner Simon Chinn (“Man on Wire”) and Emmy winner Jonathan Chinn (“American High”) with Academy Award-winning directors Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin (“Undefeated”) and featuring original music from Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans (“OA”. “Enemy”), LA 92 premieres at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival on Friday, April 21.

“Race relations is America’s Achilles heel,” said Lightbox producers Jonathan Chinn and Simon Chinn. “The production of this film might mark the 25th anniversary of this seminal uprising, but this kind of events still recur, and we are still dealing with their root causes. Our goal with LA 92 is to reframe the story of this tragedy for a modern audience, and we hope it will encourage reflection and debate as we wrestle with these very real conflicts that continue to plague America’s cities.”

Following the premiere at Tribeca, the film will complete a multi-city screening tour including Baltimore, Charlotte, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.   Additionally, a limited theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles begins Friday, April 28, and LA 92 makes its television broadcast debut on National Geographic on Sunday, April 30 at 9/8c and will also air globally in 171 countries and 45 languages. Furthering the national conversation, National Geographic has also partnered with Picture Motion to provide free screenings of the film to colleges and universities nationwide and developed a robust free discussion guide to accompany the film. For more information, visit: natgeotvpressroom.com

Using no narration or talking head interviews, the filmmakers decided to take a bold approach: to reconstruct the tumultuous events that unfolded in 1992 by exclusively using archival footage and photographs. Culling thousands of hours of visceral and rarely seen broadcast news footage, radio reports, police files and personal home videos – some of which has never been broadcast – the filmmakers tell the story through a variety of different points of view and perspectives and set it all to a rich orchestral score composed by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans.

“We come from a cinema verité background and as such, we are always striving to find ways to let the footage speak for itself,” said Martin and Lindsay, who also edited the film. “Our intent was to fully immerse viewers in a raw and unfiltered experience in order to challenge their understanding of the civil unrest, both emotionally and intellectually.”

The filmmakers sourced an intricate network of citizen journalists with boots on the ground during the civil disturbance to bring authenticity to the film. The film features never-before-seen and rarely used footage from the Los Angeles First AME Church who supported many victims of the violence, to materials from the Los Angeles police and fire department, to video from contemporaneous news broadcasts from LA-based Korean-language television stations, LA 92 takes viewers out of the prism of their own cultural, racial and political perspectives and allows them to see the events of 1992 in a new light.

The film captures the shock, disappointment, and fury felt by many Los Angelenos, particularly those in the African-American community, following the outcomes of two back-to-back and highly publicized trials. In November 1991, a Korean convenience store owner who was convicted of fatally shooting African-American teenager Latasha Harlins was given no jail time by a white Los Angeles judge. Six months later, four police officers caught on videotape brutally beating unarmed black motorist Rodney King were acquitted of assault by a predominantly white Simi Valley jury.

The King verdict sparked a wave of violent protests, looting and arson that lasted several days and left more than 50 people dead, thousands injured and large swaths of Los Angeles — including many Korean-American-owned businesses — in ruins.  And in the case of the King beating, it was the first time the kind of abuse many had witnessed or experienced at the hands of LAPD officers was recorded and broadcast for the world to see, leaving some with the sense that if justice did not prevail despite such graphic evidence, it never would.

For more information, visit natgeotv.com/la92.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PRESENTS A LIGHTBOX PRODUCTION

LA 92

ORIGINAL MUSIC BY DANNY BENSI & SAUNDER JURRIAANS

EDITED BY TJ MARTIN

EDITED BY SCOTT STEVENSON DAN LINDSAY

CO-PRODUCER BEN PINER PRODUCER SARAH GIBSON

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

MATT RENNER TIM PASTORE

PRODUCED BY JONATHAN CHINN & SIMON CHINN

DIRECTED BY DAN LINDSAY & TJ MARTIN

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