Bisbee ’17

Robert Greene / 2018 / 112 minutes / Spine #19

Radically combining collaborative documentary, western, and musical elements, the new film by Robert Greene (Kate Plays Christine) follows several members of a close-knit community as they attempt to reckon with their town’s darkest hour. In 1917, nearly two-thousand immigrant miners, on strike for better wages and safer working conditions, were violently rounded up by their armed neighbors, herded onto cattle cars, shipped to the middle of the New Mexican desert, and left there to die. This long-buried and largely forgotten event came to be known as the Bisbee Deportation. Bisbee ’17 documents locals as they play characters and stage dramatic scenes from the controversial story, culminating in a large scale recreation of the deportation itself on the exact day of its 100th anniversary. These dramatized scenes are based on subjective versions of the story and offer conflicting views of the event, underscoring the difficulty of collective memory, while confronting the current political predicaments of immigration, unionization, environmental damage, and corporate corruption with direct, haunting messages about solidarity and struggle.

BLU-RAY/DVD SPECIAL FEATURES:

• Audio Commentary by Director Robert Greene

• Bisbee ’17 Shorts (36 minutes)

• Ghost Towns of Arizona, a short film by Robert Greene (2006, 7 minutes)

• Deleted and Extended Scenes (37 minutes)

• Theatrical Trailer

• Booklet featuring an Oral and Visual History of the Making of Bisbee ’17

ALSO BY ROBERT GREENE

• Kate Plays Christine, a gripping nonfiction thriller, and winner of a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival

THE PROJECTR BLOG

→ Read Robert Greene’s 10/10 list.