Documenting the Hard Truths of Prison and Policing

Two documentaries premiering at this week’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York—Madeleine Sackler’s “It’s a Hard Truth Ain’t It” and Marilyn Ness’s “Charm City”—address issues of criminal justice, but they do so in vastly different ways.

In Sackler’s film, 13 Indiana prison inmates, many of whom have been convicted of murder or attempted murder, are given cameras to record each other’s reflections. In “Charm City,” Ness takes a more traditional documentary approach as she explores tensions between the Baltimore Police Department and the communities it