Feeling Seen

Nearly three decades after their wrongful rape convictions—and subsequent years of imprisonment—the Central Park Five’s story is told in Ava DuVernay’s new limited series, When They See Us (launching May 31 on Netflix). Here the creator, 46, shares its long road to the screen.

- Leah Greenblatt

Ken Burns and his daughter Sarah made an acclaimed documentary on the Central Park Five case in 2012, but this is the first time it’s been told as a narrative drama. How did the story come to you? I was actually invited by Raymond Santana, one of the Five. He tweeted me, and I DM’d him back, “Does no one have your story?” I remember being a junior in high school when it happened... It all just seemed to come together in an organic way.

It really becomes a kind of tapestry across four episodes.

Certainly, it’s about the case of the Central Park jogger, but underneath that is a deep dive into the different phases of the criminal justice experience. So the first part is all about police interaction, precinct behavior, bail. The second is about the court and plea trial, and the ways in which we’re processed through the legal system. The third part is about juvenile detention and post-incarceration, how formerly incarcerated people are treated in this country. And the fourth part is about incarceration itself.

But in a way that’s very personal.