''9500 Liberty'' is a 2009
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...
about the struggle over immigration in
Prince William County
Prince William County is located on the Potomac River in the U.S. state of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population sits at 482,204, making it Virginia's second-most populous county. Its county seat is the independent city of Manassas ...
,
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
. It was directed by
Annabel Park and
Eric Byler.
Content
The film chronicles an eight-week period wherein an
"Arizona-style" immigration crackdown was implemented and quickly repealed. ''9500 Liberty'' began as an "interactive documentary," allowing its viewers to not only comment, but to help determine direction and additional coverage of the story, which was uploaded to a
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
channel
9500 Liberty YouTube
Official YouTube channel as footage was shot. These videos were combined with additional unreleased footage (including the directors' attempts at citizen journalism
Citizen journalism, also known as collaborative media, participatory journalism, democratic journalism, guerrilla journalism or street journalism, is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, a ...
and civic duty amidst an antagonistic climate) to create the documentary.
Release and Reception
''9500 Liberty'' garnered four film festival awards, and was released theatrically in select cities; it was picked up by MTV Networks
Paramount Media Networks (formerly known as Warner Cable Communications, Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment, MTV Networks, Viacom Media Networks, and ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks) is an American mass media division of Paramount Global tha ...
for a Sept. 26, 2010 cable premiere.
References
Further reading
*
External links
9500 Liberty website
*
2009 films
2009 documentary films
American documentary films
Documentary films about immigration to the United States
Films scored by Michael Brook
Films set in Virginia
Films shot in Virginia
Prince William County, Virginia
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
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