Peter Watkins’s chilling and uncompromising vision of a dystopian America feels disturbingly relevant and eerily prescient after 50 plus years. In this pseudo-documentary, anti-war protestors and civil rights activists are detained without due process and given a grim choice: lengthy prison sentences or three days in Punishment Park, a brutal desert terrain where they have to survive without sustenance while being pursued by National Guard members and trainee police officers. Watkins’ searing critique of the suppression of dissent was influenced by the McCarran Act of 1950, reflecting realities that remain resonant today. Controversial since its release, thus rarely screened theatrically, the film will be presented courtesy of the Watkins family.