Ultraviolence

15 years after Ken Fero’s ground-breaking film Injustice, which examined deaths in police custody, comes a compelling follow-up that feels as timely as ever.

Since 1969, there have been over 2000 deaths in police custody in the UK. It is a frightening statistic that Ken Fero approaches with seasoned conviction. Ultraviolence employs unflinching archival footage to document the tragic and undignified deaths that took place between 1995 to 2005. Victims include Fero’s classmate Brian Douglas and Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot and killed whilst travelling on the London underground. With intimate access to a variety of sources, Fero encounters families devastated by these killings and subsequently thwarted in their struggle for justice. Ultraviolence shows a corrupt system failing UK citizens. An essential starting point in understanding the urgency felt amongst many UK social movements today, Fero’s film is all too prescient.