False Belief

Can we believe that the police and criminal justice system is there to defend and protect us? Artist and filmmaker Lene Berg’s documentary False Belief shows us how it can sometimes seem like the opposite is the case – as if these institutions are simply tools in the hands of people with strong political and financial interests.

The film switches between different times, and stretches back to 2008 when Berg moved in with her partner D., and African American publisher, in Harlem, NY. After filing a report against a neighbour for threats and harassment, D. himself gets arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated. But why? False Belief follows his case, and the serious consequences it will have for D., through a period of ten years during which his trust in the criminal justice system is severely weakened.

False Belief puts D.’s case into a wider context, in which African American neighbourhoods are being gentrified en masse, people are squeezed out of their own homes, and what constitutes «normal behaviour» is continually narrowed down. Lene Berg uses everything from still images, collages and cardboard cut-outs, to legal documents, interviews, and her own observations in order to tell this story. In this way, she also challenges our expectations to the film as medium and what stories it can tell – and what truths in can hold.