Riotsville, USA

A treasure trove of archival footage taken from US military recordings and 1960s broadcast TV forms the foundation for Sierra Pettengill’s stunning essay film, a piercing interrogation into the origins of American police militarization. Through a meticulous and creative assemblage of images and sounds, it charts the machinations of the Kerner Commission, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s task force on civil disorders, and the creation of model towns used to train police and military in techniques to pacify antiwar protestors. The palpable fear of all-out domestic terrorism born of the Civil Rights Movement materializes in these eerie simulations positioning law enforcement and civilians as actors in scenes straight out of mid-twentieth-century science fiction/dystopian films in which the true enemy is often hidden in plain sight.