Emile de Antonio’s Underground (1976)

Floor Three, Susan and John Hess Family Theater

Directed by Emile de Antonio (1919–1989), Mary Lampson, and Haskell Wexler (1922–2015). 16mm, color, 87 minutes. The screening will be introduced by filmmaker Mary Lampson.

On May Day 1975, three filmmakers recorded interviews with Weatherpeople Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Kathy Boudin, Jeff Jones, and Cathy Wilkerson at a "safe house" near Los Angeles. The film they completed a year later was much more than long sequences of talking heads, intercutting a well-scavenged collection of footage that was not "archival" so much as it was a compendium of leftist documentaries from that moment in history. With excerpts from works by Chris Marker, Third World Newsreel, Jane Fonda's Indochina Peace Campaign, and others, Underground now serves as a double-barreled time capsule. We see deep into the interior of the Weather Underground and broadly sample the texture of documentaries of dissent.

This three-day screening series highlights the films of Emile de Antonio, one of the most important political filmmakers in the United States during the Cold War. The program is co-organized by Donna De Salvo, Deputy Director for International Initiatives and Senior Curator, and Laura Poitras as part of a series of public events, lectures, and talks organized in tandem with ​Laura Poitras: Astro Noise. All notes and descriptions are adapted from Anthology Film Archives program notes, written by Dan Streible, co-editor of Emile de Antonio: A Reader.

Tickets are required ($10 adults, $8 members, students, and seniors). Capacity is limited; visitors are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance.