‘2nd Chance’: New Film from Associate Professor Ramin Bahrani (CC ’96) Opens This Weekend
2nd Chance is the latest film from acclaimed filmmaker Associate Professor Ramin Bahrani (CC ’96). Following a successful run of the festival circuit, the documentary will open theatrically this Friday, December 2, 2022 in New York City and LA before releasing in over 20 cities nationwide beginning December 9, 2022.
The story of 2nd Chance starts in 1969, when a bankrupt pizzeria owner, Richard Davis, invented the modern-day bulletproof vest. To prove that it worked, he shot himself—point blank—192 times. He launched Second Chance, which became the largest body armor company in the world, saving over 3,000 lives. Charming and brash, Davis became a celebrity figure among police and gun owners across the country. But when a police officer died wearing a Second Chance vest, Davis’s friend and employee became a government whistleblower in a case against the company. This exploration of Davis’ rise and fall reveals a man of contradictions, decades of reckless lies and threats, and the nature of power and impunity in America.
The film is Bahrani’s first documentary feature and has been called “a piece of perverse Americana” in a review from Variety as well as a “morbidly funny capitalism horror story” by IndieWire. It has screened at several prestigious festivals, including the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, South by Southwest 2022, The Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, and more.
Bahrani will appear for an in-person Q&A alongside award winning playwright Will Arbery on Saturday, December 3, 2022 following the 7:00pm ET screening at Village East Cinemas in NYC. Get tickets and see the complete schedule of upcoming screenings here.
Watch the trailer for 2nd Chance below.
Ramin Bahrani is a critically acclaimed Iranian-American writer, director, producer, and documentarian. He is the writer, director, and producer of The White Tiger, for which he has earned Oscar, BAFTA, and WGA Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay. Based on the Man Booker Prize-winning novel by Aravind Adiga, the critically acclaimed Netflix feature film stars BAFTA nominee Adarsh Gourav, Rajkummar Rao, and Priyanka Chopra-Jonas, and is executive produced by Chopra and Ava DuVernay. His filmography includes critically acclaimed films such as Man Push Cart, Chop Shop, Goodbye Solo, At Any Price, and 99 Homes. Early in his career, legendary film critic Roger Ebert proclaimed Bahrani as “the director of the decade” in 2010. Bahrani is a Guggenheim Fellowship winner, has been the subject of retrospectives around the world, and his cinematic oeuvre is housed in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Bahrani also served as a director and executive producer on the limited series The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, based on the novel by best-selling author Walter Mosley, and starring Samuel L. Jackson and Dominique Fishback for Apple TV+. He is also producing Moratto and Camilleri’s new untitled films, and will direct, write and produce the feature adaptation of Adiga’s latest novel, Amnesty, for Netflix.