In 2017, Krasner, a civil rights attorney who sued the Philadelphia Police Department 75 times throughout his career, mounted a longshot campaign supported by activists and organizers, and ultimately won the District Attorney’s seat in a city that has the highest incarceration rate of any large city in the United States. From Krasner’s win in 2017 up to the present moment, “Philly D.A.” brings viewers inside the emotional, high-stakes work that Krasner and an ensemble of idealistic outsiders from different walks of life take on as they strive to overhaul an entrenched criminal justice system while grappling with detractors, political opposition and a skeptical public.

Verité documentary filmmakers Ted Passon and Yoni Brook secured wide-ranging access to the District Attorney’s office, embedding themselves on a near daily basis for the last three years. This unfiltered access captures Krasner’s dramatic first year in office and documents the day-to- day struggles of trying to change the entrenched criminal justice system. Krasner and his team drew national headlines as they pushed for reforms such as prosecuting police misconduct and brutality, rethinking sentencing, reforming probation and parole, minimizing the use of cash bail, and ending pursuit of the death penalty.

Larry Samuel Krasner is a former public defender and civil rights attorney and the 26th District Attorney of Philadelphia. Heralded as an “anti-establishment” candidate with support from Black Lives Matter and Occupy Philadelphia, Krasner won election in 2017 on a platform of criminal justice reform, which includes reduced incarceration, ending capital punishment and the elimination of cash bail for low level offenses. Krasner appears in Philly D.A. as the central character disrupting Philadelphia’s status quo in favor of change.

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