Nothing to See Here: Watts — How a Community Reclaimed Its Story and Reduced Gang Violence

The documentary Nothing to See Here: Watts emerged from a community-driven effort where residents of Watts, California—including rival gang members, police officers, and families affected by violence—filmed their own stories on smartphones over three years, resulting in a 90-minute film that chronicles their collective experience and has been credited with contributing to a period of zero gang-related homicides in the neighborhood following its local screening.

The project began in December 2021 when venture capitalist Michael Soenen joined a police ride-along in Watts and witnessed multiple gang shootings, including one fatality, which prompted him to distribute 20 iPhones to residents across differing sides of the law to document daily life in the community.

Soenen relinquished creative control, insisting that the participants retain ownership of their narratives and serve as the filmmakers, a decision that required months of collaboration among former adversaries to shape the final cut through shared editing sessions where tensions gradually gave way to dialogue and mutual understanding.

Suzanne Malveaux, former CNN anchor and White House correspondent who co-produced the film, observed that as participants shared personal footage, hostilities diminished and they began to see one another as fellow human beings rather than stereotypes, transforming the editing process into a space of reconciliation.

The film avoids conventional victim narratives or redemptive arcs for external audiences, instead portraying Watts residents engaging in self-reflection and collectively determining how they wished to be defined—a practice aligned with the concept of narrative identity, where community self-stories influence internal behavior and perception.

According to the filmmakers and internal LAPD Southeast Division data cited in the documentary, Watts experienced over 100 killings in three years prior to the project, followed by 12 months with no gang-related homicides after the film was screened locally—a correlation the creators urge should not be dismissed despite the absence of causal proof.

The first major public screening took place in October 2025 at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles, drawing a diverse audience that included city officials, Hollywood figures, gang members, and police officers, who remained for a panel discussion and a live performance by the band Styx after a ten-minute standing ovation.

Subsequent screenings occurred at The King Center in Atlanta during the Beloved Community Global Summit on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and at Harvard University and Harvard Kennedy School on April 7, 2026, where the filmmakers—Crips and Bloods members—presented not as research subjects but as authors of their own narrative, receiving standing ovations and emotional responses from audiences.

The Nothing to See Here Foundation, established from the film’s proceeds, is managed by the participating filmmakers and directs funding to more than 40 local nonprofits engaged in violence prevention and neighborhood revitalization, ensuring that financial benefits remain within the community.

Soenen identifies two non-negotiable principles for replicating the model elsewhere: participants must retain full authorship over their stories, with the freedom to withdraw and take their footage, and all filmmakers must unanimously agree on the final cut, ensuring shared ownership and accountability.

While acknowledging that each city presents unique challenges in gang structure, law enforcement relations, and historical mistrust, Soenen asserts that the core conditions—outsider-controlled narratives and normalized violence—are recognizable nationwide, making the Watts approach a potential framework for other communities seeking to reclaim their stories.

As America continues to grapple with gang violence through various interventions, the Watts experiment stands out for producing a sustained period without gang-related homicides in a neighborhood long defined by such violence, offering not a declared solution but a story deemed worthy of attention and further exploration.