Film About Sandra Bland's Final Days, Legacy To Debut At Tribeca

NAPERVILLE, IL— It's been three years since Naperville resident Sandra Bland allegedly asphyxiated herself after police arrested during a routine traffic stop in Texas, but her name is still making headlines. The HBO documentary 'Say Her Name: The Death and Life of Sandra Bland,' which makes its debut at Tribeca Film Festival on April 24, confronts the controversial days leading up to and following the activist's shocking death through jail surveillance footage, interviews with family, and Bland's own work.

Bland, 28, a vocal activist against police brutality and racial profiling, died while in custody at a jail in Waller County, Texas in 2015, three days after police pulled her over for allegedly failing to signal before changing lanes. Her arrest came after she allegedly became confrontational with police about a request to put out a cigarette.

Though Bland's subsequent death was ruled a suicide, the incident sparked protests throughout the U.S. by people who joined her family in challenging the circumstances surrounding her death.

Bland's family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Waller County Police Department and settled for $1.9 million in 2017.

Directed by Kate Davis and David Heilbroner, 'Say Her Name: The Death and Life of Sandra Bland,' follows Bland's family's legal efforts and their reaction to jail surveillance footage that doesn't seem to answer their lingering questions surrounding Bland's alleged suicide.

Police said there were no cameras near the cell in which Bland died. "I would think that that would be strange," Bland's sister Shante Needham says in the film's trailer.

She continues, "Why was she in a cell by herself? That's a big cell for one person."

Jail surveillance film in the documentary appears to show officers wheeling a gurney full of medical equipment out of the area near Bland's cell. "When they were wheeling the gurney out, I went, 'Whoa. She's gonna be on the gurney, right?' Oh, no; she wasn't on the gurney, Sharon Cooper, Bland's younger sister shares in the film.

'Say Her Name: The Death and Life of Sandra Bland,' will be shown on four different dates at Tribeca, which calls the documentary, "a vigorous, unflinching case study in racial justice."

Image via YouTube, Sandy Speaks