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Documentar y Looks at the Tragedies of Police Wor k B Y M I C H A E L C H AT F I E L D A police officer is killed in the line of duty every 53 hours in the United States." Those chilling words, intoned by actor Michael Chiklis, set the stage for "Fallen," a riveting, emo- tionally charged documentary by Director/ Cinematographer and medically retired Soledad Police Sergeant Thomas Marchese. The film's intent is to provide a peek behind the blue cur- tain at the realities—and tragedies—of law enforcement. How policing is done in America has become a hot-button issue. "I made a conscious effort not to politicize it," Marchese says. "My goal was to show that cops are human too." The media is rife with examples and videos, shot when things go wrong. "There are about one million police officers in the US," the director says. "And more than two billion contacts between cops and the pub- lic every year. The incidents we see on the news are not even a fraction of one percent of those encounters." Ironically, three years into this project, Marchese became a statistic himself when he was viciously stabbed while on duty, interceding in a domestic dispute. His story was included in the film. "Fallen" will be released September 8, 2017, in about 15 markets nationwide. More information is available at www.fallenproject.com. SHORTCUTS FILM Director/Cinematographer and medically retired Soledad Police Sergeant Thomas Marchese created "Fallen," a documentary about the realities of law enforcement. 78 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S U M M E R / F A L L 2 0 1 7 Photo: Martin Olander "