In celebration of Black August, Nostalgic for Nothing Cinema is excited to show Cinda Firestone's 1974 documentary Attica, which details the historic prison rebellion that still reverberates today in what Orisanmi Burton calls "the long Attica revolt." Let us continue to deepen our study of this important moment in the development of prison abolitionist politics and praxis by learning from what past struggles can teach us for the present.

Social unrest in the United States hit a boiling point on September 9, 1971, when inmates at Attica State Prison—after months of protesting inhumane living conditions—revolted, seizing part of the prison and taking 35 hostages. The uprising resulted in the death of 43 people after troopers were called in to suppress the rioters. Three years later, Cinda Firestone released this monumental investigation of the rebellion and its aftermath, piecing together documentary footage of the occupation and ensuing assault with video from the McKay Commission hearings that criticized Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller’s handling of the incident and firsthand interviews with prisoners discharged after the event. Unavailable for 33 years, Attica still is a sobering and revealing look into the heart of American justice, weighing the costs of institutional dishonesty and abuses of power against the price some will pay to retain human dignity.

Attica / dir. Cinda Firestone / 1974 / 80 mins