AMERICAN NIGHT: PUNISHMENT PARK

Each year, Offscreen hosts a themed evening event packed with marvels: forgotten trailers, public service films, television archives... This year, the centrepiece of our American Night is the faux-documentary Punishment Park, part of a 1970s US-themed soirée of shorts, trailers and other curiosities

PUNISHMENT PARK

A film crew records proceedings as dissidents opposed to President Nixon's regime are stripped of their rights and forced to choose between jail and trying to survive three days in a Californian desert, hunted by National Guard trainees. Watkins's chilling vérité-style mockumentary once seemed far-fetched. Not any more.