In the 1960s, with the advent of the civil rights movement of racialized people in the US, the army and the police force built cardboard cities to prepare themselves to combat the demonstrations and riots that were beginning to emerge. This formed a modus operandi of repression that has perpetuated itself to the present day (in which any intervention on public streets by black people is viewed as a risk). Sierra Pettengill recovers images of these cities and training exercises and cross-references them with journalistic reports of the time, talk shows, speeches and rallies, to recreate the atmosphere of violence that characterised the politico-bureaucratic response to the struggle for equality.
Riotsville, USA premiered at Sundance and received the award for Best Documentary at Minneapolis Film Festival.