The world has witnessed police brutality, violence, racism against the black people especially in the US. It has gone from bad to worse at this point and there has been worldwide movement for bringing those issues to the front. Netflix’s 3rd short animated film, “Cops and Robbers” for the year is releasing on the 28th of December and this is all about police brutality against black people.
The short film is directed by Arnon Manor and Timothy Ware-Hill. Timothy Ware-Hill is the writer and presenter for the film. This movie is in response to the murder of Ahmaud Arbery which was the result of police brutality. On May 5th, as his video surfaced and sent shockwaves of faith lost in humanity, Arnon Manor, decided to make something that could make people understand and tell the grave reality the colored people, especially the black people face not only in the USA but all around the world.
Arnon was inspired to create the animated version of Timothy Ware-Hill’s poem based on the same cause, which led to their collaboration in this short film. They have said that their movie is dedicated to all black men, women and children out there, who have faced police brutality, lost dear ones to such crimes and racism just because they were what they were.
More than 30 individual artists, students and VFX companies from all over the world came together to each create a short segment of the poem with their own style of animation and interpretation of the poem. More than half of the creators behind the scenes are black animation artists and creators. Jada Pinkett-Smith is one of the driving forces behind the short film coming to Netflix. As a fellow Black woman, she wanted this community to be represented in a much bigger platform so that people come to know about the incidents and life changing moments that have gone down in history.