COLUMBIA REVOLT (Newsreel #14)
Pr. Newsreel, 1968.
United States. 59 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, MAY 16TH 5pm with q+a

Working between 1967 and 1972, Newsreel was an activist film collective made up of numerous filmmakers who produced dozens of films documenting the political and social unrest of the late 60s and early 70s. Preserved by Third World Newsreel, this is the first opportunity to see the newly digitalized COLUMBIA REVOLT. One of the collective’s longest films, it documents the student occupation of five Columbia University buildings in April 1968.

An early large-scale protest of the Vietnam War, the action exposed links between Columbia’s institutional funding, support of the Vietnam War, and a new gymnasium to be constructed in the nearby neighborhood of Morningside Heights. Led by the Students for a Democratic Society and the Society of Afro-American Students, hundreds of young activists experimented with new forms of organizing, despite violent clashes with the NYPD. The revolt successfully forced the university to abandon its gymnasium project and disaffiliate from the Institute for Defense Analyses, a military research corporation supporting the US invasion of Vietnam.

Abigail Susik and Sean Lovitt will join us for a Q+A discussion following this screening.

preceded by
GARBAGE DEMONSTRATION (Newsreel #5)
Pr. Newsreel, 1968.
United States. 10 min.
In English.

This short Newsreel film follows a group of young people as they travel from Manhattan’s rapidly politicizing Lower East Side to its Upper West Side, bringing with them heaps of uncollected garbage from their own neighborhood to relocate on the grounds of Lincoln Center.

Co-programmed with Abigail Susik and Sean Lovitt.