Punishment Park

Punishment Park
DVD cover
Directed by	Peter Watkins
Produced by	Susan Martin
Written by	Peter Watkins
Starring	Carmen Argenziano Harold Beaulieu Jim Bohan Stan Armsted Paul Alelyanes
Music by	Paul Motian
Cinematography	Joan Churchill Peter Smokler
Edited by	Terry Hodel Peter Watkins
Production company	Chartwell Francoise
Distributed by	Project X Distribution
Release date	1 January 1971
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$95,000

Punishment Park is a 1971 American mockumentary drama film written and directed by Peter Watkins. It is a pseudo documentary of a British and West German film crew following National Guard soldiers and police as they pursue members of a counterculture group across a desert.

The film takes place in 1970. The Vietnam War is escalating and United States President Richard Nixon has just decided on a "secret" bombing campaign in Cambodia. Faced with a growing anti-war movement, President Nixon decrees a state of emergency based on the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950, which authorises federal authorities, without reference to Congress, to detain persons judged to be a "risk to internal security".

Members from the anti-war movement, civil rights movement, feminist movement, conscientious objectors, and Communist party, mostly university students, are arrested and face an emergency tribunal made up of community members. With state and federal jails at their top capacity, the convicted face the option of spending their full conviction time in federal prison or three days at Punishment Park. There, they will have to traverse 53 miles of the hot California desert in three days, without water or food, while being chased by National Guardsmen and law enforcement officers as part of their field training. If they succeed and reach the American flag at the end of the course, they will be set free. If they fail by getting "arrested", they will serve the remainder of their sentence in federal prison.