In 2019, at the cusp of a historic spike in gun violence in St. Louis, a team of filmmakers and local activists began documenting a cycle of guns, crime and revenge playing out in the streets in north St. Louis.
The result is the documentary “Catching Bullets,” which debuts on streaming services Tubi and Amazon on Aug. 15. The film follows the life of drug dealer-turned-anti-violence activist Darren Seals, who in the 1980s treated the Walnut Park neighborhood as territory for crime and violence. Decades later, in 2018, Seals bought a condemned church — the same one he attended as a child — and converted it into a youth center called Sankofa.
The film’s opening scene follows Seals and other activists marching with a casket down a street in the Wells-Goodfellow neighborhood, calling for an end to gun violence. The documentary’s producer, Derrick Phillips, was still filming when the event was interrupted by gunfire.
“We didn't rehearse anything,” Seals told St. Louis on the Air. “It was about 11 o'clock [at night] and the streets was quiet. We come out with loud music, and we were just trying to get attention on the casket — to let people know, ‘Hey, you don't get it together, this is the route you’re going to take.’”
Some of the film’s most intimate scenes take place inside Sankofa, showing the mentorship between Seals and a group of school-age boys. Despite their young age, they are already becoming trapped in a cycle of violence and street crime. In one scene, a boy describes witnessing a fatal shooting over an argument involving cut grass clippings. Another boy shares his hope to one day take revenge on the man who murdered his father.
Ben Scholly, the film’s director, said he hopes “Catching Bullets” can humanize the cycle of violence that still defines the lives of so many St. Louis residents.
“Gun violence in our community is a problem that has so many root causes, and so many ripple effects, and it feeds back into itself,” Scholly said. “There are a lot of people who are really dedicated [to solving gun violence], and they're really grinding it out. I hope that seeing this film will help the audience appreciate that [and] want to support those efforts.”
To hear the full conversation with anti-violence activist Darren Seals, “Catching Bullets” director Ben Scholly and producer Derrick Phillips, listen to “St. Louis on the Air” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube, or click the play button below.
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. The production intern is Darrious Varner. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr.
