Riotsville, USA

synopsis

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, director Sierra Pettengill 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; how it's constructed and how it manages to rumble on.