Punishment Park & Africans With Mainframes, Sept. 13, 14, and 18 at Dormouse!
New short film added to the September show! Also, Paris Is Burning film favorites and Monoform Mixtape. Also also, The People's Joker added in October!
Come see Punishment Park & Africans With Mainframes at the Dormouse Theatre!
🗓️ Friday, September 13 | 🎟️ Get tickets!
🗓️ Saturday September 14 | 🎟️ Get tickets!
🗓️ Wednesday, September 18 | 🎟️ Get tickets!
⏰ Doors at 7:30pm, Africans With Mainframes starts around 7:45pm, Punishment Park starts around 8pm
🎬 Punishment Park (1971, 1hr 28min, dir. Peter Watkins)
🎬 Africans With Mainframes (2023, 15min, dir. Kima Hibbert)
In this fictional documentary, U.S. prisons are at capacity, and President Nixon declares a state of emergency. All new prisoners, most of whom are connected to the antiwar movement, are now given the choice of jail time or spending three days in Punishment Park, where they will be hunted for sport by federal authorities. The prisoners invariably choose the latter option, but learn that, between the desert heat and the brutal police officers, their chances of survival are slim.
Africans With Mainframes
All three of our Punishment Park shows will be preceded by a screening of Kima Hibbert's 2023 short film, Africans With Mainframes. We love this short film and are thrilled to share it with everyone. Kima was directly inspired by Peter Watkins and Punishment Park in particular in the making of Africans With Mainframes, which makes this the perfect context to see it. It is not currently streaming anywhere so come on out for your only chance to see it! Thanks so much to Kima for allowing us to show it!
What if electronic music was created by Black sharecroppers in the American South and Kraftwerk was actually a psyop? LaJoye Watkins, a reclusive Black woman living in Brooklyn, is determined to tell a secret she has harbored all her life: electronic music was actually started by Black Southerners in the 1920s.
“Inspired by the genre-less works of Guy Maddin, Peter Watkins, and others, I explore a big idea with a sense of levity.” — Kima Hibbert
Read more about Kima and Africans With Mainframes here.
Thanks for coming to Paris Is Burning!
Film Favorites from the Paris Is Burning Show
Thanks to everyone for coming to the Paris Is Burning show, and thanks to everyone who shared some film recommendations! At our events we have a table near the concessions where people can share what films they love and why. We hope that it helps start conversation, even indirectly, and then we collect the suggestions we receive and share them out with the larger community. The attendees at the Paris Is Burning show in August suggested:
Gina
Heathers (1988, dir. Michael Lehmann)
It’s one of a kind, funny, sick, fashionable, irreverent, and smart all at the same time. 80s and timeless. Plus, peak Winona!
Max
Hausu (1977, dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi)
Honestly just a very strange movie, most of the actors have little to no acting experience. Large plot elements were written by the director’s daughter. Very surreal and stylized.
Anonymous
Joyland (2022, dir. Saim Sadiq)
Gorgeous Pakistani film about how gender norms constrict us, and about discovering yourself.
Drew
Host (2020, dir. Rob Savage)
A perfect time capsule of the 1st year of the pandemic, as well as the scariest screenlife film yet to be created!
Finch
House of Boys (2009, dir. Jean-Claude Schlim)
This was the first gay movie I watched as a young teen and the beginning of my passion for queer history. I credit this movie with my ever growing collection of old queer books (1960s - 1990s).
Monoform Mixtape: Paris Is Burning
We made a Letterboxd list of films related to Paris Is Burning and have shared it at our Letterboxd account. We used clips from quite a few of these selections in our pre-show and they are all widely available for viewing. If you’d like to share any other films please comment on the list for everyone to see! Follow us on Letterboxd to see (and add to) our next Monoform Mixtape lists!
The People’s Joker Added to October Schedule!
At the Paris Is Burning show we also announced that we’ve added a screening of The People’s Joker on Wednesday, October 23 at the Dormouse Theatre! We went to Grand Rapids to see it at the Wealthy Theatre and some of you may have traveled to Chicago to see it. We are super excited to play this on the big screen for its Kalamazoo theatrical premiere!
That’s it for now, see you next time. Grab your tickets, spread the word, and we’ll see you all at Dormouse Theatre in September for Punishment Park and Africans With Mainframes!