DocHouse Presents: 1971 + Skype Q&A

Documentary Screening.

Dir: Johanna Hamilton
United States / 2014 / 80mins

Before Watergate, Wikileaks and Edward Snowden there was Media, Pennsylvania. On March 8, 1971 the Vietnam War and political paranoia were at their peak. With everyone in America glued to the Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier fight, eight anti-war activists broke into an FBI field office and stole every document they found. Mailed anonymously to the press, the documents revealed a trove of damning evidence proving that the FBI was deliberately intimidating civil rights activists protesting the Vietnam War.

Through archive footage, interviews and dramatized scenes, this entertaining new documentary from Johanna Hamilton unveils the truth behind this bizarre crime and for the first time, reveals the identities of four members of the group, known as the Citizen’s Commission to Investigate the FBI. Anonymous until now and in comfortable middle age, these four 70’s radicals confess at last, and explain why eight ordinary people were willing to risk everything to expose a system that had become a state within a state.

We are delighted to announce that we will be joined by Director Johanna Hamilton via Skype for a Q&A following the first screening on Friday 5th June.