Rooftop Films: Riotsville, USA

@ The Old American Can Factory

Riotsville, USA is screening at The Old American Can Factory for $16 on Saturday 8/13 at 9PM as part of Rooftop Films.

Sierra Pettengill, 2022, 91 min.

This screening is in partnership with Rooftop Films and takes place off-site at The Old American Can Factory in Brooklyn. 

8:00 PM: Doors Open

8:30 PM: Live Music

9:00 PM: Films Begin

11:00 PM: Q&A with filmmaker Sierra Pettengill

11:30 PM: After-Party

Riotsville, U.S.A.

Sierra Pettengill, 2022, 91 min.

Welcome to Riotsville USA, a turning point in American history where the protest movements of the late 1960s came into conflict with increasingly militarized police departments. Focusing on unearthed military training footage of Army-built model towns called “Riotsvilles,” where military and police were trained to respond to civil disorder in the aftermath of the Kerner Commission created by President Lyndon B. Johnson, director Sierra Pettengill’s kaleidoscopic all-archival documentary reconstructs the formation of a national consciousness obsessed with maintaining law and order by any means necessary. Drawing insight from a time similar to our own, Riotsville USA pulls focus on American institutional control and offers a compelling case that if the history of race in America rhymes, it is by design.

Screening before the feature:

Black Mayonnaise

Nathan Kensinger, 2022, 9 min.

A dark voyage into one of the most contaminated bodies of water in the United States. A Superfund cleanup is now underway in the heart of Brooklyn, unearthing the toxic sediment of ‘black mayonnaise' at the bottom of the Gowanus Canal.