''Attica'' is a 1974 American documentary film directed by Cinda Firestone. The documentary focuses on the 1971 Attica uprising. The film cost $40,000 to make, being put together using footage of the event and shoots from inside the prison. It received positive reviews and was later selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

Synopsis

The film covers the

Attica Prison riot The Attica Prison Riot, also known as the Attica Prison Rebellion, the Attica Uprising, or the Attica Prison Massacre, took place at the state prison in Attica, New York; it started on September 9, 1971, and ended on September 13 with the high ...

in 1971, using news footage and interviews from prisoners of Attica. It also features footage of the McKay Commission, which investigated the leadup to the riot.

Production

''Attica'' was directed by Cinda Firestone, heiress to the

Firestone Tire and Rubber Company Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is a tire company founded by Harvey Firestone (1868–1938) in 1900 initially to supply solid rubber side-wire tires for fire apparatus, and later, pneumatic tires for wagons, buggies, and other forms of wheeled ...

. While writing a piece about the prison uprising for the

Liberation News Service Liberation News Service (LNS) was a New Left, anti-war underground press news agency that distributed news bulletins and photographs to hundreds of subscribing underground, alternative and radical newspapers from 1967 to 1981. Considered the "Asso ...

, Firestone came up with the idea of making a film about it. The initial concept was doing a 5–10 minute film combining taped interviews from Attica prisoners with still photographs. She eventually obtained footage of the event from television stations and

UPI United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th c ...

. She and a film crew would later shoot inside the prison itself. The Firestone family funded the film, putting up $40,000 to make it. The film premiered at the

International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg The Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival (german: Internationales Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg), often referred to by the German-language initialism IFFMH, is an annual film festival established in 1952 hosted jointly by the citi ...

on October 1973.

Reception

Gloria Woman from the ''

Lesbian Tide The ''Lesbian Tide'' (1971-1980) was a lesbian periodical published in the United States by the Los Angeles chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis. It was the first lesbian periodical in the US to reach a national audience and the first US magazine t ...

'' called ''Attica'' "a very powerful document".

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' described the film as "an exceptionally moving, outraged recollection of that terrible event." In 2022, the film was selected for preservation in the United States

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

References

Bibliography

External links

* * * * {{tcmdb title, 485293, Attica 1974 films 1974 documentary films Attica Correctional Facility 1970s American films United States National Film Registry films 1970s English-language films English-language documentary films Documentary films about incarceration in the United States