Punishment Park

Uchronia and dystopia converge in Punishment Park, where Peter Watkins portrays an America consumed by paranoia. More than fifty years after its release, this vision still resonates with striking relevance today. To mark this screening, musician Farida Amadou—who has performed with Cocaine Piss and collaborated with Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth)—will perform a live improvised soundtrack. Blending sonic textures, silence and raw energy, this unique musical performance promises an immersive and unprecedented experience. Punishment Park This political fable is inspired by the enforcement of the McCarran Act, an emergency law adopted in 1970 amid the escalation of the North Vietnam conflict, authorizing the detention of "any person deemed likely to endanger national security." In a desert region of Southern California, a group of convicted prisoners is offered the promise of freedom if they can cross the desert on foot, without food or water, and reach the American flag before being captured by the armed, motorized special forces sent in pursuit of them. Farida Amadou Originally from Liège and now based in Brussels, Farida Amadou is a self-taught electric bassist and sound artist. Since 2017, she has established herself as one of the most distinctive voices on the European experimental and improvised music scene. Her radical approach to the bass guitar—often amplified, distorted and deconstructed—blurs the boundaries between noise, free jazz, electroacoustic music and punk.