An award-winning documentary about the increasing militarisation of American police forces and a comic romp based on a novella by Jane Austen are to screen at the Weekend Film Series on Sunday.

In Love & Friendship, screening at 3pm, beautiful young widow Lady Susan Vernon (Kate Beckinsale) visits the estate of her in-laws to wait out the colourful rumours about her dalliances circulating through polite society.

While ensconced there, she decides to secure a husband for herself and a future for her eligible but reluctant daughter, Frederica. In doing so she attracts the simultaneous attentions of the young, handsome Reginald DeCourcy (Xavier Samuel), the rich and silly Sir James Martin (Tom Bennett) and the divinely handsome, but married, Lord Manwaring (Lochlan O’Mearáin), complicating matters severely.

The film, which also stars Chlöe Sevigny and Stephen Fry, is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association of America “for some thematic elements”.

Screening at 5.15pm at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, Do Not Resist is an urgent and powerful exploration of the rapid militarisation of police forces in the United States.

The film, which won the top documentary prize at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, starts on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, as the community grapples with the death of Michael Brown, and offers a stunning look at the current state of policing in America and a glimpse into the future.

It puts viewers in the centre of the action — from a ride-along with a South Carolina Swat team and inside a police training seminar that teaches the importance of “righteous violence” to the floor of a congressional hearing on the proliferation of military equipment in small-town police departments — before exploring where controversial new technologies including predictive policing algorithms could lead the field next.

The film was rated 14A (persons younger than 14 must be accompanied by an adult) for its screening at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival.

Tickets for both films are on sale now at the Oceans Gift Shop, BUEI, or by calling 294-0204. Trailers of the films can be viewed at www.bermudadocs.com.