In the 1960s, while riots were taking place in Chicago, Newark, and Detroit, the U.S. Army built fake towns in an effort to train an increasingly militarized police force. Archival military footage reveals the elaborate staging of protests in front of applauding spectators and rolling cameras.

Transfixing and urgent, Riotsville, U.S.A. explores how American policing’s tactics and language have been propagated to the public, so as to encourage acceptance of protest repression. Reworking extensive archival footage, this time capsule proves all too relevant to the current climate.