Sheriff

As seen on PBS’ Independent Lens

The first film in Daniel Kraus’ WORK Series, a set of independent documentaries designed to create an on-going record of the American worker.

“This insightful program offers an intriguing peek at small-town law enforcement.”
- Booklist

“without taking anything away from [Frederick] Wiseman, who remains a master, Sheriff is almost as good any documentary he’s made.”
- Noel Murray, The Onion

Sheriff Ronald E. Hewett oversees the rural Southern community of Brunswick County, North Carolina. Heading up what used to be a backwards, back-woods department, Hewett strives to maintain order and civility in a region fraught with murder, robbery, and the occasional theft of ceramic lawn ornaments. To accomplish this impossible task, Hewett uses the only tools at his disposal — God, guns, and the hundreds of blood relatives that populate his jurisdiction.

At once brutal, bizarre and funny, Sheriff employs the techniques of Frederick Wiseman’s pure cinéma vérité: no interviews, no music, no voice-overs. The result is an unexpected, intimate portrait of a complex man trying to do good in a bad, bad world.

Sheriff is an intimate portrait of an admirable blue-collar man and the first in the WORK Series, a set of independent documentaries from director Daniel Kraus designed to create an on-going record of the American worker.