Over 50 years ago, the murder of Kitty Genovese shocked the country with its blatant indifference and disregard. The troubling story is now documented in the upcoming film, 37.
37 examines the lives of a group of families during the day and night of a tragedy that shocked America. The film peeks into the lives of three disparate families, all living in the neighborhood, and all witnesses to the horrible crime, seeking to make sense of their decisions not to act by understanding their day-to-day struggles.
Genovese was stabbed to death by Winston Moseley near her home in Kew Gardens, on March 13, 1964, where, reportedly, 37 neighbors witnessed the killing and did not intervene. In fact, their unresponsiveness would become a psychological paradigm, prompting an investigation into what was diagnosed as a social psychological phenomenon that has come to be known as the bystander effect or “Genovese syndrome.”
Moseley was arrested, tried, found guilty and sentenced to death a few months later. Although his death sentence was later reduced to life imprisonment on the grounds that he had not been allowed to argue during the trial that he was “medically insane.”
Samira Wiley (Orange Is the New Black) leads an ensemble cast that also includes Michael Potts and Marquise Gary as one of the 3 families in focus in the film, known as the Smiths: Joyce (Wiley), her husband Archibald (Potts) and their son Troy (Gary).
The rest of the ensemble cast includes Christina Brucato, Jamie Harrold, Maria Dizzia, Evan Fine, Thomas Kopache, Sophia Lillis, Lucy Martin and Adrian Martinez.
Danish filmmaker Puk Grasten makes her feature directorial debut based on a short version made three years ago.
The film opened the 38th Moscow International Film Festival in June – only its second screening – after making its world premiere at the Göteborg International Film Festival in Sweden, in February.
The film has no release date or distributor but is scheduled for release this November in Denmark.
Check out the trailer, and poster from the film, below:
