Arresting Power — Julie Perini

documentary feature film // digital video & 16mm film // 1 hour & 24 minutes // 2015
co-directors: Jodi Darby, Julie Perini, Erin Yanke
Streaming on Kanopy // Distributed by Collective Eye films

“Bucking the current Portlandia image, the film builds a context for understanding systemic racism in Portland through the long lens of history.”- Rose Bond in Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, 2015

Arresting Power: Resisting Police Violence in Portland, Oregon documents the history of conflict between the Portland police and community members from the 1970s until the early 2010s. The film features personal stories of resistance told by victims of police misconduct, the families of people who were killed by police, and members of Portland’s reform and abolition movements. Utilizing meditative footage taken at sites of police violence, experimental filmmaking techniques, and archival newsreel, Arresting Power creates a space for understanding the impacts of police violence and imagining a world without police. The film is in the collections of dozens of libraries across the United States where it has become a community resource for Portland and for all communities working to imagine a world that is truly safe for everyone. The film is freely available to watch on archive.org.

I began working with police/prison abolition and reform groups in Portland when I moved to town in 2007. For several years, I participated in educational and protest activities, I learned about copwatching. I learned about theoretical and historical frameworks for understanding how police and prisons maintain hierarchical and oppressive systems in the United States. I met a community of intergenerational activists up and down the West Coast. I began to make media with police accountability groups, for Know Your Rights trainings and other purposes. These relationships and ideas led to my collaboration with community organizers and filmmakers, resulting in Arresting Power and The Gentleman Bank Robber. Jodi Dary and Erin Yanke were longtime Portland artist-activist, having created media with social movements for many years. They were the perfect collaborators for Arresting Power, which we began in 2011, first calling it Safe & Sound? Artists Respond to Police Violence.

still images from the film
Interview with Kent Ford, founder of the Portland Black Panther Party

Charlotte Williams, PSU Black Student Union leader speaking at protest over the killing of Rickie Johnson, 1975, newsreel footage from the Oregon Historical Society

still image from Arresting Power

dvd

selected screenings, exhibitions & events
2024: screening as part of PICA’s Policing Justice exhibition, curated by Nina Amstutz & Cleo Davis, Clinton Street Theater, Portland, Oregon
2020: public screening organized by Mobile Projection Unit, projected on the Burnside Bridge in Portland, Oregon
2019: screening & discussion with filmmakers at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Portland, Oregon
2015: Local Sightings Film Festival, Seattle, Washington
2015: screening & discussion with filmmakers and interview subjects, Hollywood Theater, Portland, Oregon
2015: screening & Q&A with filmmakers, Northwest Film Center at the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon

Arresting Power projected on the Burnside Bridge in Portland, Oregon as part of an outdoor screening by Mobile Projection Unit, June 24, 2020

Arresting Power at Hollywood Theater in Portland, Oregon. Panel discussion with Erin Yanke, interview subjects Grace and JoAnn Hardesty, Julie Perini & Jodi Darby. February 23, 2015.

Co-directors interviewing the Reverend Dr. LeRoy Haynes at Allen Temple CME Church in Portland, Oregon

awards
2015: Best of the Northwest Award of Excellence, Alliance for Community Media
2015: John Michaels Award for Best Documentary, Big Muddy Film Festival, Carbondale, Illinois

press
2015: Film review by Rose Bond in Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism, May/June
2015: Film review by Amy Lam in Bitch Magazine

support provided by:
funding from hundreds of individual donors
2013 Precipice Fund Project Grant from the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art through the Andy Warhol Regional Re-grant Program
2012 Project Grant, Regional Arts & Culture Council (to support Safe & Sound? Artists Respond to Police Violence, a precursor to Arresting Power)

Julie Perini is a filmmaker and artist in Portland, Oregon.