Ralph Nieves and I first met in 1994, when I was in New York working on another production. After talking for hours about his work and life, I immediately believed that this could be an excellent idea for a documentary about violence and crime and about this man living "between the lines". Through Ralph`s eyes, we had the opposite perspective than most existing cop-shows: A film from the point of view of those who committed a crime or who are accused of having trespassed the line between "right and wrong".

For a period of approximately 2 years I continued to bug Ralph with my researches and went back and forth between Paris and NY to learn more about his work, about the South Bronx, about the defendants, the lawyers and the cops, to develop the story.

During that time Félix Olivier and me met at a screening of Félix film "GEORGE DUREAU-LA DOULEUR EN BEAUTE", a compelling and highly acclaimed portrait of George Dureau, a photographer/painter from New Orleans. We spoke about the project, and immediately he was as fascinated and intrigued by the idea as I was.

We started to put the information together, whereby I focussed on Ralph's former work as an undercover police officer and Felix on the personal and more intimate part of this life. I don't recall how many different versions of this script we finally wrote, but as with many documentaries it turned out that reality exceeded by far our own imagination. Over all the years the working title was "From Badges to Buttons - The South Bronx".

While Félix took over the "writing part", I started talking to television executives from all over the world, and their immediate reactions were very encouraging for us all. Yet it still would take a couple of years to start...

During that time, my company produced a theme evening for French-German public broadcaster ARTE, and we continued to develop from Badges to Buttons with the idea to integrate the film into one of those evenings as well. Jacques Laurent, head of ARTE's "not-to-classify-documentaries-slot" in Strasbourg, liked the idea a lot and helped us to pull it through. He as well as Stefan Wieduwilt, commissioning editor at the ZDF, suggested that I meet Olaf Grunert, who then passed the project through the German side of ARTE. In May 1998 we had the greenlight for a co-financing and Olaf became our commissioning editor.

Félix and me knew that the difficult part in making this documentary would be the necessary time to gain the trust of the people who will be filmed, and to make them feel at ease in front of the camera. We decided to film on video to be as mobile and flexible as possible, with a very small team. Félix directed and operated the camera at the same time. We used a small 16/9 format Sony hi-resolution digital camera with a steadycam-like construction that allowed highest flexibility as well as smooth and discreet operating.

With less difficulties than expected Ralph as well as the defendants and their families were extremely comfortable with having us around. From January 1999 until mid June Félix followed Ralph everywhere! We taped over 100 hours of footage, which then took him and the editor, Melissa Neidich, several months categorize, select and deselect etc. Parallel, Anne Feinsilber assisted us in researching archive materials for the part of Ralph`s work as an undercover police officer. In September '99 we started editing, and the final mastering and sound mix was completed end of January of this year.

During all these months, we all established a very close relation, that made it possible to speak about Ralph`s own "traumatic" experience of being wrongfully accused. Twenty years after his arrest and his own trial, this feeling of betrayal and the naked fear of spending the next 45 years in jail for a crime that he didn't commit, remains an omnipresent factor in his life and the key to understand his relentless pursuit for justice and his compassion for the people of the "barrio".

Thanks to all who made this all possible, especially to Ralph Nieves, Félix Olivier, Inge and Uwe Carstensen, Olaf Grunert, Jacques Laurent, Stefan Wieduwilt, Melissa Neidich, Anne Feinsilber; Sigrid Mathes, Christian Schwalbe; to those who gave us the faith through their interest, to our families and friends who were willing to deal with this for so long, and last not least to all those who accepted to tell their stories.

Markus Gieppner
Producer of 18b JUSTICE, February 2000