DOC WEEK: SEIZED

Sat Aug 1, 7:30 pm @ Martha's Vineyard Film Center

$15 General Admission, $12 Member, $10 child (age 14 or younger)

Doors open for admissions 30 minutes prior to screening. Buy tickets at The Film Center or online now

With director Sharon Liese and Charlie Sennott, MV Times Publisher

SEIZED is a gripping, stranger-than-fiction investigative thriller that plunges audiences inside the troubling police raid on the Marion County Record. What begins as a shocking small-town incident quickly spirals into a national story, exposing how corruption, politics, and decades-long tensions turned a quaint Kansas community into a battleground over the First and Fourth Amendments. The film unfolds in real time through police body-cam and surveillance footage, revealing the raid’s chaos, the bombshells that followed, and the devastating personal toll on the newsroom, including the tragic death of its 98-year-old co-owner.

Director Sharon Liese allows the story to unfold with nuance, surprises, eccentric characters, and humor. By letting each voice speak for itself, she crafts a rare documentary in which sympathies shift moment to moment, revealing how truth, ego, and fear collide in real time. Blending the juicy intrigue of a classic muckraking narrative with a clear-eyed exploration of power, politics, and the fragility of a free press, SEIZED transforms a headline-grabbing event into a deeply human story that is urgent, unsettling, and impossible to ignore.

A perfect First Amendment argument
The Hollywood Reporter

A masterclass in storytelling
The Wrap

The subjects…are as colorful as any movie character
The Guardian

Sharply observant, surprisingly funny
Next Best Picture

Moving tribute to hyperlocal journalism
For the Win / USA Today

Sharon Liese is an Emmy® Award winning filmmaker committed to social justice storytelling. Her film, THE FLAGMAKERS (NatGeo, Disney+), won the Emmy® for Outstanding Short Documentary (2023) and was Oscar shortlisted. Her short doc, PARKER, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and is distributed through The New Yorker. Her HBO feature documentary, TRANSHOOD, won the audience award at AFI. Sharon’s film, THE GNOMIST (CNN Films), won more than 15 awards. Sharon’s series, LET US PREY, was released on Max in 2023.