The ride for a documentary that is an emotional rollercoaster of sorts began–in terms of public awareness–at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. It marked the first Sundance for David Osit as a director. His feature-length Predators–which made its world premiere at the high-profile festival to critical acclaim–explores To Catch a Predator, a TV series that was a cultural sensation from its inception in the early 2000s. Dateline NBC’s candid-camera investigative show ensnared sex offenders whose intended victims were minors. In cooperation with local law enforcement, the series lured these potential culprits to a film set for what they thought was a rendezvous with an underaged sexual partner. Once there, these sex offenders would be confronted and interviewed by host Chris Hansen–and subsequently arrested.
Osit’s documentary casts a light not only on the offenders seemingly brought to justice, but also Hansen, the worldwide industry of imitators and vigilantes who launched their own, less polished versions of the show online, law enforcement, actors (those who posed as the minors on the phone and on-camera to lure criminals to the film sets), and assorted others–including journalists, academics and ultimately Osit himself, delving into our obsession with watching people at their lowest, and how this became an accepted form of entertainment.
As for the emotional rollercoaster description, at first there’s often an uplifting feeling derived from watching sexual predators getting their comeuppance, seeing their lives shattered on camera when questioned by Hansen. But soon thereafter there’s a measure of sorrow for them and their sickness–particularly as Osit’s documentary shows behind-the-scenes footage. And then there was the case of a local Texas official who got caught by the To Catch a Predator team and took his own life to avoid being seen on the show.
Osit observed that his documentary is not so much about To Catch a Predator but rather how “we engage with it,” how that show has impacted and reflects our society, both the good and the bad as well as the gray area in-between.
In his director’s statement about the documentary, Osit shared that initially he didn’t see the full value of the project. He observed that “at best” viewers of To Catch a Predator found “entertainment from delighting in the punishment of criminals, with the audience firmly planted in the moral driver’s seat. What more could be gained from moralizing and finger-wagging at a 20-year-old television show?” But Osit’s opinion changed as he further researched the show and discovered its online fandom community–”thousands of people on subreddits and web forums of all ages, from all around the world, collecting raw footage, audio recordings, chat logs and depositions through FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests and any means necessary. I found myself watching raw, unedited interrogation videos and hearing phone calls with decoys that never made it to air during the show. I was transfixed. I found myself having a genuinely complex emotional experience–I’d read a chat log and feel disgust towards one of these men, then watch their raw interrogation video and feel tremendous sorrow for them. Then I’d land back on the decoy phone call and feel disgust again. This emotional ping pong was so compelling to experience, and I wondered if I could build a film with this discomfort as its spine. Ultimately, I couldn’t have imagined the depths of the journey I’d end up going on–how making this film would not only challenge the limits of my own empathy, but reflect the tenuous morality behind how we tell stories, report news, and make films. My frustration with true crime, I realized, came from the illusion that after watching a true crime story, the crime will be solved and we’ll get all the answers. But what if I made a film that was about what happens–and what are we capable of doing to each other–when answers can’t be found?”
The documentary also became personal for Osit as it caused him to plumb the depths of what he does as a documentarian. It’s a delicate balancing act–pursuing a subject, story, cause or issue that needs to be brought to the public consciousness but running the risk of in some way exploiting those involved in order to drum up audience and attention. His personal connection to the documentary takes on an even deeper dimension when he reveals on camera that as a youngster he was a victim of predatory behavior.
For Osit, the biggest takeaway or lesson learned from his experience on Predators was simply that all of us “kind of carry this weird duality of being able to have empathy and also being able to be quite cruel.” And, he noted, we adjust our sliding scale accordingly depending on what we encounter, how we respond to different challenges. He noted that a show like To Catch a Predator “is basically able to turn that duality into entertainment,” in essence taking advantage of that fact that “we at our core are all creatures of empathy and cruelty.”
Predators made its mark at Sundance, including getting seen by folks at MTV Documentary Films, which later bought the film. Predators is being released today (9/19) in New York City at the Film Forum theater. A week later (9/26), the documentary is slated to break in theaters in Los Angeles and San Francisco. And the national rollout is on October 3. Streaming plans for the documentary have not been disclosed.
In addition to directing, Osit shot, produced and edited (with Nicolas Norgaar Staffolani) Predators.
Predators adds to a filmography for Osit as a director which includes Mayor, winner of both a Peabody Award and a News & Documentary Emmy in 2022. He also helmed Thank You For Playing (broadcast on PBS’ POV in 2016), which was nominated for three News & Documentary Emmy Awards, winning for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary. Osit’s feature directorial debut, Building Babel, screened at True/False in 2012 and was broadcast as the series premiere of PBS’ America Reframed in 2013.
Osit additionally edited and produced Off Frame, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and Berlinale in 2016. He edited, produced and composed No Man’s Land, which debuted at the 2017 Tribeca Festival and was broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens in 2018. Osit’s work as an editor and consulting editor includes Procession (Netflix), Crime + Punishment (Hulu) and The Vow (HBO).
