A City in the Forest

When a police unit in Atlanta moves to raze an urban forest for the country's largest police training facility, a grassroots movement fights to defend the land.

It started in the streets. During the 2020 George Floyd uprising, a private police foundation proposed clearing over 300 acres of urban forest for what opponents would come to call "Cop City." The community pushed back, filling 17 hours of public comment urging Atlanta City Council to reject the plan. When those voices went unheard, people took matters into their own hands. In his feature debut, director Lev Omelchenko embeds his camera within the protests, capturing a diverse, decentralised resistance that connects environmental racism, political corruption, police violence and the criminalisation of dissent. What emerges is a collective portrait of one of America's most urgent social justice stories, where the fight to save a forest becomes about something much bigger.