Fruitvale Station is the story of Oscar Grant, the 22-year-old man from Hayward, California who was shot and killed while laying face-first on the ground in handcuffs by a police officer at a transit station in Oakland.
The movie won several awards at Sundance including the Grand Jury Prize, which was previously awarded to the Oscar-nominated Beasts of the Southern Wild in 2012 and Winter’s Bone in 2010.
“This project was about humanity, about human beings and how we treat each other; how we treat the people that we love the most, and how we treat the people that we don’t know,” first-time director and Bay Area-native Ryan Coogler said as he accepted the award.
Fruitvale Station, starring Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer, will be in theaters July 26.
