Watch The Trials of Darryl Hunt For Free

Purely Joyful Movie!

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

In 1984, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, young white newspaper editor Deborah Sykes is brutally raped and murdered. A man with a history of violence and crime, claiming to be somebody else, phones the police to report that he has seen a young woman killed. A name given during the phone call leads the police to question young black male Darryl Hunt and his friend, and later take them in for further questioning. With a media s**t-storm generated by the slaying of a white woman in a black neighbourhood in a Southern state, what transpired next was one of the most shockingly vindictive miscarriages of justice in recent American history.Documentaries surrounding wrongful imprisonments and the many failings of the American judicial system are extremely common, but The Trial of Darryl Hunt is particularly infuriating due to the involvement of Hunt himself; a humble, intelligent man who maintains his innocence and dignity throughout his many trials without a hint of hatefulness towards his accusers. He spent 19 years in prison for his imagined crime, his release only being granted after the exhaustive efforts of his legal team and dedicated community following. Ten years into his term, DNA evidence is presented that clears Hunt, but the judge rules that this only proves he didn't do the deed, not that he wasn't present.The film never tries to be anything other than informative, and directors Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg detail every movement in the case rather than getting over-stuffed with style. It's often an incredibly frustrating watch, made slightly more bearable by the sight of Hunt,older and heavier, being granted his freedom in the opening moments. It shows us a city divided by skin colour, where tension is still high in a country that believes it has moved on from its dark history, and where a black man can be proved guilty by an all-white jury for a crime he didn't do, the only evidence being broken testimony from a known liar, an ex-convict and a man who looks like he's stepped out of the Jim Crow South.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

This film tells the story of a man so decent, so patient, and so forgiving of the injustices done to him, that if it were fiction, it would seem completely implausible. I saw it at the Bend Film Fesitval a couple years ago. At the end of the film, Darryl walked out onto the stage to a tearful two minute standing ovation.It's one thing to hear a story of a man who is wrongly accused and to be angry with the system that failed him, and quite another to see the man behave in such a saintly manner. The film is shot and edited superbly, and takes you through the roller coaster ride of hope and despair that Darryl, his family, and the community that called him their son went through for decades. You feel the pain of the people involved, and the joy of seeing that justice is eventually done is tempered by the fact that Darryl lost such a large portion of his life.

While this documentary overlooks the fact that Darryl Hunt was no choirboy before his original murder conviction, it does a stellar job in showing how he was framed and the dogged determination of the "justice" system to see that that wrongful conviction was upheld. Much of his persecution was simply due to poor police work and overzealous prosecution, than deliberate malfeasance, but it cost this man a third of his life. The most poignant part is the literal trials as well as the tribulations he underwent before he was ultimately exonerated. An extraordinary documentary that anyone who holds the belief that the American system of jurisprudence is fair, impartial and unbiased should be urged to watch.

Documentary about Darryl Hunt--a black man in the south who is wrongly accused of raping and murdering a white woman. Film moves slowly but it really has to. It shows, step by step, that Hunt was a victim of racism and ended up spending NINETEEN YEARS in jail for a crime he did not commit.Very difficult to watch--I broke down crying three times during this one. The film isn't one sided either--they interview people who were for AND against Hunt and their reasoning. It became very clear that he was railroaded into jail and the police did everything in their power to keep him there--including destroying evidence that would have cleared him.Shattering and thoroughly fascinating. A 10 all the way.