CYCLE
Directors: Laura Dyan Kezman and William Howell
Crew:Written & Produced by: Laura Dyan Kezman and William Howell. Original Score by: Immortal Girlfriend. Edited by: Laura Dyan Kezman. Director of Photography: Laura Dyan Kezman.
Email:laura@lionart.media
Synopsis
CYCLE investigates what happens in the silence between viral cases of police brutality, exposing the system that allows it to repeat. Centering the 2019 Juneteenth Day killing of Ty'rese West—a Black teenager killed by police in a small Wisconsin suburb—the film unearths the quiet unraveling that happens behind closed doors—through courtrooms, sworn depositions, and years of unanswered questions—when a family seeks truth with no headlines to back them.
Featuring interviews with national legal scholars and rare access to the officer’s sworn deposition, CYCLE reveals the raw, often unseen struggle for accountability when there's no video, no headlines, and no public pressure.
Timely, haunting, and already striking a deep chord with audiences, CYCLE breaks through the noise to confront the silence that follows.
Trailer
About the directors
Laura Dyan Kezman - Laura Dyan Kezman is an award-winning director, cinematographer, and editor based in Milwaukee, and the founder of LionArt Media. Her latest film, CYCLE, is a five-year investigative documentary that confronts the silence surrounding police violence in America. With over a decade of experience in documentary and journalism, her work is grounded in the belief that personal stories can challenge dominant narratives and shift how we understand the world. She is currently producing a feature documentary for PBS in co-production with ITVS and Firelight Media, and has another feature in development. As a contributing video journalist for The Washington Post, she has also directed and produced work for The Today Show, National Geographic, and Al Jazeera English.
William Howell - William Howell is a cinematographer, editor, and director based in Milwaukee. His passion and skillset for filmmaking is preceded by a 20-year career in music production. After a catalogue of music videos, his transition into documentary came while producing and being a cinematographer to the film The Rise and Fall of Coo Coo Cal (2020, Amazon Prime) and directing the documentary You Don’t Know Me (2020, Amazon Prime).
Filmmakers' note
We made CYCLE to interrupt the silence. Not just the silence after Ty'rese West was killed, but the silence that follows so many cases that never go viral — cases where there's no footage, no public pressure, and no accountability.
We built this film on years of investigation, in partnership with Ty'rese's family and with a commitment to exposing how systems of power shape the narratives we're told. In the time since the world premiere, we’ve seen how deeply the film resonates — not only as a story of the past, but as a mirror to the patterns we’re still living through.
CYCLE isn't an answer. It’s an opening. A call to look closer, ask better questions, and refuse to accept the way things have always been.
We designed this film as a framework — to give people language, insight, and connective tissue between incidents, headlines, and lived experience. It's a film rooted in love, not rage. One that invites the energy it stirs to be transformed into something generative. In a world designed to confuse and divide, CYCLE offers clarity — and in that clarity, the power to move differently.
— Laura Dyan Kezman & William Howell