Wilmington (Newsreel Collective, USA, 1970)

This documentary is about a "company town." The DuPont family controls the state of Delaware as if it were a private kingdom through the giant DuPont Corporation. Their normal image as benevolent, philanthropic liberals is challenged when they called the National Guard into Wilmington after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to occupy the city for ten months. Through interviews and verite footage, the film exposes how the DuPont Corporation dominates its workers through its control of education, media, politics and the economy. Established in December 1967 as Newsreel, an activist filmmaker collective, this NY group grew to become a network with chapters across the US. Its different chapters produced and distributed short 16mm films covering the anti-war and women's movements, Civil and human rights movements, getting unique access to such groups as the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords Party. Newsreel's activism attracted many artists who became well known film