Reinaldo Marcus Green presented at the 2015 Sundance Film Fest his short film, Stop, about a young black man who gets stopped by the police on his way home from baseball practice.
His feature film, Monsters and Men, follows the perspectives of three different men after a killing committed by the NYPD: that of a young father who recorded the act, a black police officer trying to make sense of the killing, and a high school athlete who wonders whether he should get involved in speaking out.
With a triptych structure that dives into each point of view, Green explores each man’s character. “The idea of the title is that we all have a little bit of good and bad in us. And we can choose to turn a blind eye to the things that are happening around us or we can do something about it. We’re all human, and we have choices to make, and we have to live with those choices.”
However, Green admits that it’s not always easy to know what to do. “I think about my own personal life and how I can become more active or how I can become involved, and a lot of times it’s like, ‘Man, it’s such a big issue. I don’t know what to do.’ And the issue becomes so overwhelming that we end up doing nothing. And I just thought, that can’t be. Even the smallest thing, even just paying attention can make a difference. And that was really the start to this film. We’re not going to end racism with the film, but we could start a conversation.”
