In November 1970, university, state and local police shot 778 Bullets into an off-campus rental house in Carbondale, IL. The residence was rented to a handful of university students, some were assumed to be associated with the local Black Panther Party. Unlike other police raids of known Black Panther residences across the country, the Carbondale Panthers shot back. Using archive material, newspaper accounts, witness testimony and experts in the field, 778 Bullets recovers a little-known history of resistance and resilience of the human struggle for self-determination. (Description excerpted from imdb.com) The film’s running time is 20 minutes, and we will discuss the film after the viewing, as well as the process Professor Aguayo undertook to create the documentary.
Angela Aguayo is the award-winning director and producer of this film, and her second book, Documentary Resistance: Social Change and Participatory Media (2019), was published by Oxford University Press. She combines a scholarly interest in social change documentary with critical production practice, and she has built an interdisciplinary, community engagement research agenda exemplified by the creation of programs like Girls Make Movies, the Rural Civil Rights Project and the Illinois Community Media Project.
