Shoot the People Review: Misan Harriman's Documentary Demands to Be Seen
TL;DR: Shoot the People is a 96-minute documentary directed by Andy Mundy-Castle, following Nigerian-born British photographer Misan Harriman as he documents the Black Lives Matter and Free Palestine protest movements. It opens in U.S. theaters around Juneteenth 2026, with a UK/Ireland release on July 10. Streaming availability for international audiences, including India, is still to be confirmed — check Movie OTT for updates as they land.
Watermelon Pictures just dropped the first trailer for Shoot the People, and it's genuinely difficult to look away.
The documentary — directed by Andy Mundy-Castle and centered on the work of photographer-activist Misan Harriman — arrives at a moment when the conversation about who gets to document suffering, and how, has never felt more urgent. This isn't a film about protests from a comfortable distance. Harriman's black-and-white images of protesters pressing against police lines, of marchers flooding city streets with nothing but their bodies and their voices, carry a weight that a news cycle rarely allows you to sit with. The trailer alone makes a case that this is one of the more important documentary releases of 2026 — not because it's timely, though it is, but because Harriman is genuinely one of the most interesting figures working at the intersection of art and activism right now.
What You Need to Know: Release Dates, Runtime, and Where to Watch
Director: Andy Mundy-Castle Subject/Lead: Misan Harriman Runtime: 96 minutes Distributor: Watermelon Pictures
The U.S. theatrical release begins with an opening at New York's Angelika Film Center, timed to coincide with Juneteenth. The wider U.S. rollout begins June 26, 2026, expanding across Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Washington D.C., Minneapolis, Portland, and Seattle before going nationwide on July 3, 2026. The UK and Ireland theatrical release follows on July 10, 2026, scheduled ahead of Emancipation Day celebrations on August 1.
Where to watch — by region:
- United States: Angelika Film Center (NYC) from Juneteenth; wide release July 3, 2026
- United Kingdom / Ireland: Cinemas from July 10, 2026
- Streaming (US/UK): Not yet announced — Watermelon Pictures has not confirmed a VOD or streaming window
- India: No confirmed theatrical or streaming release as of publication; Movie OTT's where-to-watch tracker will update as distribution details emerge
- Spain: No release confirmed at this stage
The film premiered at DOC NYC 2025 and subsequently screened at the San Francisco Documentary Festival and the 2026 Milwaukee Film Festival, according to information listed on the DOC NYC official program page. It also had an earlier premiere at SXSW, per The Hollywood Reporter's reporting on the film's release announcement.
Why This Documentary Matters Right Now — and What It's Actually About
Harriman's photographs from the 2020 George Floyd protests weren't just news images. They were art. The distinction matters, because Shoot the People is built around that tension — the gap between witness and participant, between the person holding the camera and the person holding the sign.
Mundy-Castle structures the film around Harriman's ethical wrestling with that position. He's a man of considerable privilege and public access (his portrait subjects have included Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, and Cate Blanchett), and yet he keeps returning to the streets, to the marches, to the moments where the stakes are highest. The documentary reportedly features interviews with figures including Rep. Ilhan Omar and Martin Luther King III — voices that situate Harriman's work within a lineage of civil rights documentation, not just contemporary photojournalism.
What's striking is how the film seems to resist the usual documentary biography formula. This isn't a career retrospective. It's closer in spirit to something like 13th or I Am Not Your Negro — films that use a single perspective or body of work as a lens for examining systemic injustice, rather than simply profiling an individual. That's an ambitious target, and whether Shoot the People fully hits it is something audiences and critics will debate. But the ambition itself is worth noting.
Andy Mundy-Castle's Own Words on What He Was Making
In statements connected to the film's festival run, director Andy Mundy-Castle described Shoot the People as "a film about perspective, power, and a collective sense of humanity," adding that the project was designed to confront injustice rather than simply observe it. That's a meaningful distinction — and an honest one. Plenty of documentaries observe. Fewer actually confront.
Harriman himself, speaking in the trailer, puts his philosophy plainly: "My work is observing the human condition and making art that has purpose." Nine words. Deceptively simple. The film, it seems, is an attempt to show what that purpose looks like when it's pointed at the hardest corners of the world.
(Producer Wyn Baptiste, incidentally, won the breakthrough producer prize at the British Independent Film Awards for this project — a signal that the film's industry reception has been genuinely strong, not just politely enthusiastic.)
How This Lands for Indian Audiences — and Where to Find It
Honest answer? For now, Indian audiences don't have a confirmed path to Shoot the People. No Indian theatrical distributor has been announced, and Watermelon Pictures has not confirmed streaming deals with any of the major platforms operating in the region — Netflix India, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, JioCinema, SonyLIV, or Zee5.
That said, the subject matter connects. India's own protest movements — from the 2019-2020 CAA demonstrations to farmers' protests that drew international media attention — have generated significant public conversation about who documents dissent and how those images travel. Harriman's work, which has circulated widely on social media and in global press, is not unknown to politically engaged Indian audiences. A streaming release on Netflix or Prime Video would find a ready audience here.
Movie OTT is tracking streaming announcements for Shoot the People across all major Indian platforms. The moment a release window is confirmed — whether theatrical, VOD, or OTT — it'll be listed there. Worth bookmarking if you don't want to miss it.
There's also a diaspora dimension. Indian audiences in the UK will have access to the theatrical release from July 10, 2026. For UK-based viewers, that's probably the most accessible route in the near term.
Misan Harriman: The Photographer Who Made History Before the Camera Found Him
Born in Nigeria and raised in the UK, Misan Harriman made history in 2020 when he became the first Black photographer to shoot a British Vogue cover — a milestone that arrived in the same year his protest photography was circling the globe. That's not coincidence; that's a career arriving at full force simultaneously from two different directions.
His short film The After received an Oscar nomination in 2024. A significant credential — and one that signals Harriman isn't simply a photographer who wandered into filmmaking, but someone who has been developing a serious visual storytelling practice across formats.
Director Andy Mundy-Castle has built his career in documentary and factual content, with a focus on socially urgent subjects. Shoot the People represents his most high-profile project to date, distributed through Watermelon Pictures, which has positioned itself as a distributor willing to take on politically engaged documentary work. Full details on the film's production background are available via the Watermelon Pictures official page for the project.
Key figures in the film:
- Misan Harriman — photographer, activist, first Black photographer to shoot a British Vogue cover, Oscar-nominated filmmaker (The After, 2024)
- Rep. Ilhan Omar — U.S. Congresswoman, interview subject
- Martin Luther King III — civil rights leader, interview subject
- Wyn Baptiste — producer, BIFA breakthrough producer prize winner
Should You Watch It? An Honest Take
Look — the answer is yes, if any of the following applies to you: you care about documentary photography as an art form, you're interested in how protest movements get documented and remembered, or you've ever wondered what it costs emotionally to be the person who keeps showing up with a camera when everyone else is running.
Shoot the People isn't escapism. It won't leave you comfortable. But the best documentaries don't, and this one — based on its festival run, its subject's track record, and the weight visible even in a two-minute trailer — looks like it earns that discomfort.
What's Next: Streaming Window and Awards Season Positioning
The theatrical run through the summer of 2026 sets Shoot the People up for a potential awards-qualifying run later in the year. A Juneteenth opening in New York, followed by a July 4th-adjacent nationwide expansion, is a deliberate positioning move — placing the film in cultural conversation at a moment when American audiences are already thinking about history and justice.
Streaming rights for the US and UK remain unannounced. Given the film's BIFA recognition and festival pedigree, a platform pickup — likely Netflix, Paramount+, or a documentary-focused service like MUBI — seems probable before the end of 2026. For the most current streaming availability across all regions, Movie OTT has the latest picture as distribution deals are confirmed.
Shoot the People is one to track. Closely.
