Join us this Wednesday, Nov. 5th for a timely screening of British radical director Peter Watkins' “Punishment Park” (1971), who passed away last Thursday at the age of 90.

Taking place during a fictionalized Nixon administration, the pioneering mockumentary/drama depicts a European film crew (led by an off-camera narrator/interviewer played by Watkins) following several detained political dissidents given two options: spend 20 years in prison or three days in Punishment Park – a 53-mile California desert trek with no food or water where they must reach a checkpoint with a U.S. flag while avoiding being captured by armed National Guard trainees and police officers.

Shot “newsreel”-style on a $95,000 budget in the wake of the Kent State Massacre and Chicago Seven trial, “Punishment Park” stars nonprofessional actors picked for their actual political views, resulting in mostly-improvised dialogue and expressed genuine beliefs – antiwar, hippie, Civil Rights, feminist, revolutionary, and reactionary alike – reflective of the times.

The controversial film was shunned by Hollywood distributors upon release, despite Watkins’ prior Academy Award for his 1966 nuclear war film “The War Game”. Yet it anticipates the future fictional dystopian games of “Squid Game”, “The Running Man”, and “The Purge”…and may even resemble footage of certain contemporary events currently all over your social media feeds.