With a sharp bite and wry humor, Seized tracks a high-stakes free-press crisis in the unlikely setting of Marion, Kansas. This riveting feature follows the 2023 police raid on the Marion County Record, when local law enforcement, fueled by petty grudges and small-town rumor-mongering, confiscated computers, cell phones, and confidential materials from the newsroom and the home of the paper’s 98-year-old co-owner, Joan Meyer. The film highlights the town’s colorful residents through a lighthearted yet piercing lens, from editor Eric Meyer, who has no shortage of local enemies, to Finn Hartnett, an aspiring young journalist who takes a job at the Record as a last resort only to be sucked into the drama. Filmmaker Sharon Liese skillfully balances the peculiarities of small-town politics with the gravity of a constitutional crisis, and by finding the universal in the hyperspecific, exposes how a local debacle can suddenly put the fragility of the American press on center stage. PB

Q&A following screening