“Nothing comes to a sleeper but a dream.” Firestone’s document of the 1971 Attica Prison uprising ended with a wake-up call in favor of penal reform—and then went out of circulation for 33 years. Restored in 2007, Attica details the inhuman living conditions and routine abuses that led thousands of prisoners to seize control of the Attica Correctional Facility. The film sheds light both on a shameful episode in the history of the US prison system and on a pivotal moment in the course of civil rights.

ATTICA courtesy of the Reserve Film and Video Collection of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. 

Preservation of this film was made possible by a grant from the Women’s Film Preservation Fund of New York Women in Film and Television.