In the footage from the trailer, we meet three characters that are greatly impacted after an unarmed man is shot and killed by police. One person, a struggling young father, records the whole incident on his phone but is reluctant to make the footage public. Another is a standout athlete that is inspired by the incident to get involved. The final character we meet is a police officer that struggles with his identity. Clearly, this is a film that has a message, and there’s no way you can watch the trailer and not be caught up in the footage.

“Monsters and Men” stars John David Washington, soon to be seen in Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman,” Anthony Ramos and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as the three main characters.

The film is scheduled to be released by NEON sometime this Fall, which is a clear indication that the distributor has an awards season run in mind.

Here’s the film’s synopsis:

One night, on a nondescript street corner in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, an unarmed black man is killed after an altercation with police officers. This act of violence is central to MONSTERS AND MEN, but only as the starting point for a nuanced investigation into the ripples that course through a tight-knit neighborhood in wake of yet another controversial police intervention. Green takes a story that we’ve, sadly, heard all too often in recent years, and explodes it, creating new opportunities to confront our own prejudices and assumptions head-on. MONSTERS AND MEN is an essential artistic attempt to reckon with one of the central challenges of our moment.