Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst

Guerrilla is an unprecedented account of the Symbionese Liberation Army, arguably the most notorious and flamboyant domestic terrorist group in American history. Dedicated to the rights of black prisoners and the working class, the SLA set forth in 1973 to incite the violent overthrow of the U.S. Government. Their audacious kidnapping of teenage newspaper heiress Patty Hearst – who eventually joined them – inspired a media frenzy. Every detail of their descent into the surreal outer limits of political extremism was played out in public, a spectacle foreshadowing some of the worst excesses of modern TV journalism. Thirty years later, the SLA’s extraordinary two-year crime spree resonates as a timely parable of political ideology run amok, the role of the media in America – mouthpiece? messenger? truth-seeker? – and the romantic fantasies that define modern political terrorism.

35mm | Color | 87 minutes

 

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