Fruitvale Station

An unsteady mobile phone camera captures a dreadful scene: Two men on the floor. A shot is fired. Screams are heard. It is shortly after New Year’s Eve and the people on the overcrowded train in Oakland’s Fruitvale Station can hardly believe their eyes. 22-year-old Oscar somehow felt that no ordinary day lay ahead of him when he woke up on the morning of December 31, 2008. With a distinct feeling for the occasion, he decided to make and implement his New Year’s resolution somewhat prematurely: He wanted to pay more attention to his girlfriend and their daughter, and be a better son to his mother. First, however, he had to get his job back at the supermarket – but things didn’t go as planned. FRUITVALE STATION is a dramatic reconstruction of the homicide, which took place on January 1, 2009. Director Ryan Coogler stresses: “I want audiences to know that he was a real person. He was a person with real struggles and personal conflicts, but also with real hopes, and real dreams, and goals. And his life mattered deeply to the people that he loved the most.”