A film covering a deadly Chicago police shooting is up for an Academy Award.

The movie is about Harith Augustus, a 37-year-old barber who was shot and killed by police in South Shore in July 2018. The shooting sparked immediate public outcry and legal fights for full access to police body camera video.

That released footage is now in a documentary called “Incident,” which retells Augustus’ death and explores how cameras affect police behavior. Through a montage of police body camera, dashboard camera and security footage, the film reconstructs the events of the shooting and its aftermath.

Bill Morrison, the film’s director and co-producer, said the documentary reveals vulnerable moments rarely seen in a shooting’s aftermath. The camera footage shows witnesses reacting to the shooting, and even a co-worker mourning Augustus’ death.

“Maybe we’ve become hardened to seeing shootings and violence of this nature,” Morrison said. “What I think really made this footage to another level is just the personal interactions. I think it’s those little gestures of humanity that make the footage so poignant.”

Watch the documentary here.

A day after the shooting, the Chicago Police Department released an edited clip of body camera footage. The video shows officers approaching Augustus, who then tried to break free from their hold. The clip then freezes, showing Augustus had a holstered gun at his waist. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, or COPA, released 20 more video and audio clips a month later.

Jamie Kalven, a journalist who co-produced the documentary and broke the story about the Laquan McDonald shooting in 2014, said the film was inspired by his reporting from 2022 on the shooting. He filed a public records request to get access to 20 hours of unedited footage from COPA.

“The really extraordinary thing about this is, first, that we got this unprecedented body of information,” Kalven said. “We got everything.” 

Morrison said the public’s reaction to the film has been powerful. He and Kalven have hosted several screenings across the country, which have prompted long question-and-answer sessions afterward.

Augustus’ mother also came to a screening of the documentary in Chicago. Morrison said her appearance encouraged him and Kalven to keep promoting the film to a wider audience.

“Harith’s mom stood up and she said, ‘Now the world can see what happened to my boy, to my son,’” Morrison said. “She looked at Jamie and me and said, ‘It’s really up to you all to tell the world, to show them this film.’”

The documentary highlights broader concerns about police brutality, over a decade after the Lacquan McDonald shooting, which sparked a 13-month fight for access to police body camera footage. Kalven said the film shows the role police play in deadly encounters.

“The most famous of these cases, George Floyd, was a guy allegedly passing a counterfeit $20 bill,” Kalven said. “How do these things end in the death of a citizen? They end in the death of a citizen not because that citizen has done something wildly criminal, threatening or violent. They end in the death of a citizen because of acts by the police.”

“Incident” is nominated for an Academy Award in the Documentary Short Film category. The Oscars are on Sunday, March 2.

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