Riotsville, U.S.A.

Last updated

Riotsville, U.S.A.
Riotsville, USA poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed bySierra Pettengill
Written byTobi Haslett
Produced bySara Archambault
Jamila Wignot
Edited byNels Bangerter
Music by Jace Clayton
Production
companies
Arch + Bow Films
Canal & the Gallery
Field of Vision
LinLay Production
Trailer 9
XRM Media
Distributed by Magnolia Pictures
Release date
Running time
91 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Riotsville, U.S.A. is a 2022 American documentary film by Sierra Pettengill and narrated by Charlene Modeste. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Summary

Using mainly archival footage shot by the media and U.S. government, [4] [5] [6] the film examines fictional towns (in which the filmmaker discovered after reading author Rick Perlstein's 2008 book Nixonland ) [7] to combat rioters that were created by military officials during the civil unrest of 1960s America. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]

Reception

The film received 90% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics. [13]

Awards

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bryan Fogel</span> American dramatist

Bryan Fogel is an American film director, producer, author, playwright, speaker and human rights activist, best known for the 2017 documentary Icarus, which won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 90th Academy Awards in 2018.

<i>Nixonland</i> Work of history by Rick Perlstein

Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America is a history book written by Rick Perlstein, released in May 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Rossi</span> American filmmaker

Andrew Rossi is an American filmmaker, Emmy nominated for directing, writing and producing The Andy Warhol Diaries (2022), Ivory Tower (2014) and Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011).

<i>Searching for Sugar Man</i> 2012 film by Malik Bendjelloul

Searching for Sugar Man is a 2012 documentary film about a South African cultural phenomenon, written and directed by Malik Bendjelloul, which details the efforts in the late 1990s of two Cape Town fans, Stephen "Sugar" Segerman and Craig Bartholomew Strydom, to find out whether the rumoured death of American musician Sixto Rodriguez was true and, if not, to discover what had become of him. Rodriguez's music, which had never achieved success in his home country of the United States, had become very popular in South Africa, although little was known about him there.

Àlex Lora Cercós, better known as Alex Lora, is a disabled Spanish film director. His films, marked by complex narratives, tackle social issues and have entered hundreds of film festivals and received multiple awards and nominations around the world, most notably the three official selections at Sundance, the nomination to the Student Academy Awards, his presence at the Berlinale Talent Campus, the 2 awards of the Gaudí Catalan Academy Awards after 4 other nominations, a nomination for the Goya Academy Awards, and the nomination and the prize at the New York Emmy Awards.

<i>Listen to Me Marlon</i> 2015 documentary film

Listen to Me Marlon is a 2015 British documentary film written, directed and edited by Stevan Riley about the movie star and iconic actor Marlon Brando.

<i>Cartel Land</i> 2015 American documentary film

Cartel Land is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Matthew Heineman about the Mexican Drug War, especially vigilante groups fighting Mexican drug cartels. The film focuses on Tim "Nailer" Foley, the leader of Arizona Border Recon, and Dr. José Mireles, a Michoacán-based physician who leads the Autodefensas. The film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi</span> American film director

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an American documentary filmmaker. She was the director, along with her husband, Jimmy Chin, for the film Free Solo, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film profiled Alex Honnold and his free solo climb of El Capitan in June 2017. Their first scripted film venture was Nyad, a biopic chronicling Diana Nyad's quest to be the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida.

<i>Icarus</i> (2017 film) 2017 documentary film by Bryan Fogel

Icarus is a 2017 American documentary film by Bryan Fogel. It was an initial attempt by Fogel to expose the inadequacy of existing policies and procedures to catch athletes who use banned performance-enhancing substances. But later, the project shifted its focus after pressures related to the World Anti-Doping Agency's investigation of doping in Russia led Grigory Rodchenkov, the head of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory and one of Fogel's primary advisors, to flee Russia and become a whistleblower.

<i>Wild Wild Country</i> 2018 documentary series

Wild Wild Country is a Netflix documentary series about the controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), his one-time personal assistant Ma Anand Sheela, and their community of followers in the Rajneeshpuram community located in Wasco County, Oregon, US. It was released on Netflix on March 16, 2018, after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. The title of the series is drawn from the Bill Callahan song "Drover", which features prominently in the final episode, and it also echoes the comments of Jane Stork about first seeing the ranch, shown at the beginning of episode 2: "it was just so wild, so rugged, but vast—really wild country". The series received positive reviews from critics and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.

Marilyn Ness is a documentary film producer and director based in New York City who made the social justice documentaries Bad Blood: A Cautionary Tale (2010), Cameraperson (2016), and Charm City (2018). More recent projects include the Netflix Original documentary Becoming with Michelle Obama, which was nominated for four Primetime Emmy awards and Netflix Original documentary Dick Johnson is Dead, which was on the Academy Award Shortlist for Best Documentary in 2021. She is as of 2021 an adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University.

<i>Dick Johnson Is Dead</i> 2020 documentary film by Kirsten Johnson

Dick Johnson Is Dead is a 2020 American documentary film directed by Kirsten Johnson and co-written by Johnson and Nels Bangerter. The story focuses on Johnson's father Richard, who suffers from dementia, portraying different ways—some of them violent "accidents"—in which he could ultimately die. In each scenario, the elderly Johnson plays along with his daughter's black humor and imaginative fantasies. The film premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Special Jury Award for Innovation in Non-fiction Storytelling. It was released on Netflix on October 2, 2020.

<i>Time</i> (2020 film) 2020 American film

Time is a 2020 American documentary film produced and directed by Garrett Bradley. It follows Sibil Fox Richardson and her fight for the release of her husband, Rob, who was serving a 60-year prison sentence for engaging in an armed bank robbery.

<i>Boys State</i> (film) 2020 documentary film directed by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine

Boys State is a 2020 American documentary film directed and produced by Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine. It follows a thousand teenage boys attending Boys State in Texas, coming to build a representative government from the ground up.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Ree</span> Norwegian documentarian

Benjamin Ree is a Norwegian director and cinematographer of several documentaries, including Magnus (2016), The Painter and the Thief (2020), and Ibelin (2024).

<i>In the Same Breath</i> 2021 documentary film by Nanfu Wang

In the Same Breath is a 2021 documentary film directed and produced by Nanfu Wang. It follows how the Chinese and American governments reacted to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

<i>Flee</i> (film) 2021 animated documentary film

Flee is a 2021 independent adult animated documentary film directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen. An international co-production with Denmark, France, Norway, and Sweden, it follows the story of a man under the alias Amin Nawabi, who shares his hidden past of fleeing his home country of Afghanistan to Denmark for the first time. Riz Ahmed and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau serve as executive producers and narrators for the English-language dub version.

Sushmit Ghosh is an Academy award nominated filmmaker based in India. His Peabody-award winning documentary film, Writing With Fire, became the first Indian feature documentary to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. It premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, winning the Audience Award as well as the Special Jury Award in the World Cinema Documentary Competition. Ghosh’s work has also been nominated for the Grierson, IDA and PGA awards. He is a co-founder of the award-winning production company, Black Ticket Films and a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Rintu Thomas is an Academy Award nominated documentary filmmaker and director-producer from India.

Nothing Compares is a 2022 documentary feature film, directed by Kathryn Ferguson. It looks at the life and legacy of Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor, focusing on the years 1987–1993.

References

  1. "Riotsville, USA". International Documentary Association. October 7, 2020.
  2. Gyarkye, Lovia (January 28, 2022). "'Riotsville, USA': Film Review | Sundance 2022". The Hollywood Reporter .
  3. Allen, Taryn (September 30, 2022). "Riotsville, U.S.A." Chicago Reader.
  4. Henderson, Odie. "Riotsville, USA movie review & film summary (2022) | Roger Ebert". rogerebert.com.
  5. "Film Forum · RIOTSVILLE, U.S.A." Film Forum.
  6. "Movie Review: Riotsville, USA". www.austinchronicle.com.
  7. Riotsville, USA: the shocking story of fake army towns that militarised police|Documentary films|The Guardian
  8. Kenny, Glenn (September 15, 2022). "'Riotsville, USA' Review: A Fake Town to Explore Ongoing Unrest". The New York Times.
  9. "Riotsville, USA". Field of Vision.
  10. Jenkins, Mark (October 6, 2022). "'Riotsville, USA' is a history lesson and a meditation on policing". The Washington Post.
  11. Murray, Noel (September 22, 2022). "Review: 'Riotsville, USA' evokes a law-and-order past hauntingly similar to the present". The Los Angeles Times.
  12. "'Riotsville, U.S.A.' Review: Provocative, Half-Cooked Documentary Lacks Direction and Context [Sundance]". theplaylist.net.
  13. "Riotsville, USA" via www.rottentomatoes.com.
  14. Zilko, Christian (November 13, 2022). "'Good Night Oppy,' 'Get Back' Dominate Critics Choice Documentary Awards (Complete Winners List)". IndieWire . Retrieved November 14, 2022.
  15. "Deadline: 'All That Breathes,' 'Fire Of Love' Erupt As IDA Documentary Awards Nominations Announced". Government Accountability Project . Retrieved November 14, 2022.