‘Baltimore Rising:’ Why Sonja Sohn Is The Perfect Choice To Direct This HBO Doc

Baltimore Rising, HBO’s latest documentary, premieres tonight and couldn’t be more timely: the film follows Baltimore’s activists, police officers, and community leaders as they attempt to heal their city in the wake of Freddie Gray’s 2015 murder. Directed by Sonja Sohn (The Wire), Baltimore Rising begins with Gray’s story, but it by no means ends there. As the doc makes abundantly clear, Gray’s murder was the final straw for a community that already felt abused by its public authorities, and it’s this division that the film is most interested in exploring.

Baltimore Rising is Sonja Sohn’s directorial debut and, frankly, it’s unfathomable to imagine that anyone else could have helmed the project. The film’s primary strength (and believe me, there are many) is its inherent respect for the diverse population of the city of Baltimore: no citizen, rich or poor, white or black, is denied an opportunity to share their story or to offer their own interpretation of the complex relationship between the police and the low-income neighborhoods of Charm City. The documentary’s subjects promise to do whatever they can create a better Baltimore; if a director wants to fully capture their story, she must vow to do the same.

Sohn is no newbie to Baltimore. The actress and director is best known for her role as Kima Greggs in The Wire, David Simon‘s crime drama about Baltimore’s various institutions (the drug trade, the longshoremen’s association, the city’s government, etc.) and their relationship to the police. Throughout the series’ five-season run from 2002 to 2008, viewers saw Detective Greggs graduate from a low-level position in the Narcotics division to a lead detective position in the Homicide division. As an openly gay, black, female detective, Kima constantly faced discrimination that she refused to let threaten her career, and her unwillingness to let BS affect her life immediately made her a fan favorite.

After The Wire ended in 2008, Sohn stayed in Baltimore and became an active member of the community. In 2009, she founded ReWired for Change, a non-profit dedicated to helping formerly incarcerated young people get their lives back on track, and in the years since, she has turned away from acting to focus on activism. Through her non-profit, Sohn aims to help the same communities that inspired the HBO series by providing funding, resources, and educational programming to these underserved and often-ignored neighborhoods.

In an interview with Decider in 2015, Sohn told us that she thinks Kima stayed true to herself throughout the series’ long run because “she was committed to what she thought to be her purpose in the world, which was to serve people who were living in those communities.” Clearly, the same can be said for Sohn herself.

Sohn brings knowledge of Baltimore’s inner workings, experience with compelling and complex narratives, and a commitment to the city’s underserved population together in Baltimore Rising. Sure, an experienced documentarian may be able to craft an interesting portrait of life in Baltimore after Freddie Gray’s murder, but it wouldn’t be done with as much heart and compassion as Sohn’s film. Under any other director, the film is compelling; under Sohn, the film is a personal, must-see snapshot of a city desperate for a small flash of hope.

Baltimore Rising premieres on HBO Now and HBO Go tonight, November 20, at 8 p.m.

Stream Baltimore Rising on HBO