Seized

When journalism is raided, democracy is tested.

This film is a gripping, stranger-than-fiction investigative thriller that plunges audiences inside the troubling police raid on the Marion County Record. What begins as a shocking small-town incident quickly spirals into a story that reaches international headlines, exposing how corruption, politics, and decades-long tensions turned a quaint Kansas community into a microcosm of worldwide attacks on freedom of speech. Equal parts horrifying and hilarious, the film unfolds in real time through police body-cam and surveillance footage, revealing the raid’s chaos, the remarkable pettiness that led up to them, and the devastating personal toll on the reporters, including the tragic death of the paper’s 98-year-old co-publisher.

This film won Festival Cetegory – Crime & Conspiracy at the Doc Edge Awards 2026.