Charlene Modeste
Narrator |
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Charlene Modeste |
Charlene Modeste |
Director Sierra Pettengill shifts our historic gaze from the rebellions in Chicago, Newark, and Detroit, focusing on unearthed military training footage of Army-built model towns called “Riotsvilles,” where military and police were trained to respond to domestic civil disorder.
Dissecting the anatomy of the Johnson administration’s Kerner Commission, which resulted in an explosive increase in federal funding for police, Riotsville, USA pulls focus on the machinations of American institutional control. Amid today’s shifting reckonings on power and identity, technology companies consolidating power, and a new generation’s coming-of-age, Pettengill delivers insight from a time similar to our own, urging us to understand how the machine of institutional power manages to rumble on.