BBC Documentaries

One Deadly Weekend in America (2017x178)

Air date: Jul 09, 2017

Directed by award-winning filmmaker Ursula MacFarlane, One Deadly Weekend in America focuses on one ordinary July weekend - typically the time of year when the highest number of Americans are shot and killed. Conceived as a dramatic, ticking-clock thriller, the film tells the stories of that one weekend by focusing on seven very different shootings from across the USA, from South Central Los Angeles to rural South Carolina. We hear from survivors, witnesses, families and law enforcement agencies, while newsreels, CCTV and police videos take us into the heart of the action. By humanising the stories of young lives caught up in the devastation of gun crime - stories often overlooked by the mainstream media - the film paints a dramatic and moving portrait of American's troubling relationship with guns - an exploration which feels more urgent now than ever.