Directed by Susanna Edwards • Documentary • 2025 • 90 minutes
Anti-vaccine demonstrators. Extinction rebellion activists blocking a downtown intersection. Opposing factions yelling at each other outside a Stockholm courthouse. An anti-Muslim neo-fascist agitator.
In Sweden, all these people have a right to freedom of expression — and the dialogue police are there to protect that right. Their unit was created in the wake of 2001 anti-E.U. protests in Gothenburg. Police shot three protesters, and Swedes were shocked by the violence. The result was the creation of a unit meant to manage relationships with demonstrators to prevent violence (rather than reacting to it) and to de-escalate effectively, when necessary.
THE DIALOGUE POLICE is a vérité-style documentary that follows the unit closely, as they mediate between protesters, the public, and even their own colleagues. As Sweden exports this model to other countries, this offers an insider’s look at an alternative approach to policing protest.
Up Next in New: Documentaries
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El-Sisi: Egypt's New Pharaoh
Directed by Claire Billet, Nadia Blétry • Documentary • With François Hollande, Maye Kabil, Ariane Lavrilleux, Ahmed Abdel Quddus • 2026 • 53 minutes
To an outsider, Egypt looks like a dynamic country reinventing itself. Under president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, construction is booming, with dams, b...
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The Luck of Water
Directed by Ignacio Decerega, Cristóbal Jasso • Documentary • 2023 • 64 minutes
The Luck of Water profiles two rivers and a sacred saltwater lagoon system in the indigenous Mixtec, mestizo, and Afro-descendant communities in the Oaxaca’s coastal region in Mexico. For indigenous Mixtec communitie...
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The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afr...
Directed by Ben Rivers • Drama • 2015 • 95 minutes
Please note not all of the dialogue is translated in this film, nor does it have English closed captions.
The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes are Not Brothers is a labyrinthine and epic film that moves between documentary,...
