Coming to theatres and to VOD this Friday, March 24:
AMERICAN ANARCHIST
Director:
Charlie Siskel
Premiere:
Venice 2016
Select Festivals:
DOC NYC, Hamptons, Chicago, Vienna, Stockholm, Thessaloniki Doc, Vilnius, Cleveland
About:
The author of a notorious book is forced to reckon with its destructive impact.
In 1970, William Powell, a 19-year-old disaffected anti-establishment activist, compiled recipes for explosives culled from US Army manuals found in the New York Public Library, and combined them with a radical manifesto calling for the overthrow of the government. The result: The Anarchist Cookbook. Finding a publisher all-too-happy to capitalize on the social unrest of the period, Powell’s screed generated outrage and has stayed in print over the decades, selling over 2 million copies worldwide. As Siskel all-too-frequently is ready to remind the now 65-year-old Powell, it also has been linked to a long list of heinous crimes, from Columbine and Aurora to abortion clinic bombings and Oklahoma City. Tracking down the author, who long ago denounced his tome as misguided and who has spent the intervening decade as an educator focused on special needs students, the director challenges him to face the deadly consequences of his infamous work, which, despite any efforts to contain its dangerous reach, seems destined to live on in perpetuity in the age of the Internet.
what (not) to doc 