D.R. Hernandez is an award-winning independent Latina film Director, Executive Producer, and Composer from Newark, New Jersey who recently retired at the rank of Captain with the Caldwell Police Department after 26 years of police service. D. R. is a Domestic Violence Police Specialist and a Police Academy Instructor.

D. R. combined her two passions, law enforcement and filmmaking, along with her exceptional ability for story telling, and in 2005 founded Blue Force Films, an independent film production company.   D.R. wrote, directed and produced “The Ultimate Betrayal:  A Survivor’s Journey”, a 50-minute docu-drama that exposes her family’s forty-year dark secret of physical abuse and emotional terrorism.  In 2006 this film won Dovetail TV’s Internet Best Overall Film Award and the Short Documentary Film Award and in March 2007 it won the U.S.A. Short Documentary Film Award at the Women’s International Film Festival of South Florida. This film’s theme song, composed by D.R. Hernandez, won the Home Grown Composer Award at the 2007 New Jersey Garden State Film Festival.

In April of 2007 D.R. completed production of  “CLOSURE”, a 28-minute drama that tells how September 11, 2001 altered the life of a female police officer whose sister, an NYPD police officer, perished in the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. In October of 2007, CLOSURE won the Best Short Drama Film Award at the New York International Independent Film & Video Festival held in Los Angeles, California. In April of  2008 CLOSURE was an official selection at the 2008 N.J. Garden State Film Festival.

In June of 2007 D.R. completed “A Call for Valor”, a 36-minute crime docu-drama about Irvington, New Jersey Police Sergeant Ken Hogan and his near-deadly encounter with an armed drug suspect who had a mission to kill Hogan.  Shot four times and left for dead with a bullet in his head, Sergeant Ken Hogan had a plan and survived this ambush. D.R. received the Best NY Director Award for “A Call for Valor” at the 2008 New York International Independent Film & Video Festival in New York City and “Valor” was an Official Selection at the 2008 Garden State Film Festival in New Jersey; the 2008 Fear No Film Festival in Utah; the 2008 Independent Features Festival in NYC; and the 2008 New Filmmakers Festival in NYC. In January of 2009 D. R. upgraded this film’s original version to 37 minutes.

In July of 2008 D.R. completed “Newark Street Preachers”, a 60-minute documentary that explores a faith-based community’s mission to combat street violence and to stop the gang killings of young people in Newark, New Jersey.  Afro-American Pastors, former gang members and law enforcement officers mobilize onto the front lines of an urban battlefield where gang violence, poverty, and innocent lives are intertwined with deadly results.  Newark Street Preachers received the Best Social Documentary Award at the September 2008 New York International Independent Film & Video Festival in NYC. On January 29, 2009 this film will be screened on Opening Night during the 2009 San Diego Black Film Festival in San Diego, CA.