Bisbee '17

press release: No film has more to say about contemporary America than this documentary reckoning with a little-known atrocity that occurred 100 years ago. In a 1917 Arizona mining town, union busters brought an end to a strike by rounding up over 1,200 immigrant workers and “deporting” them into the desert, where they were left to die. A century later, local historians mount a reenactment with their descendants. Looking back to comment on the present, Bisbee ’17 shows that horrific events like this can happen here—in fact, they already have. “Clearsighted and gratifyingly complicated... every important thing about this movie is still alive” (New York Times).

Q&A follows with Katherine Benton-Cohen, who served as historical advisor for Bisbee’ 17, and is associate professor of history at Georgetown University.  She received her doctorate from the Department of History at UW-Madison in 2002, where she wrote her dissertation on what became the book Borderline Americans: Racial Division and Labor War in the Arizona Borderlands (Harvard, 2009). She is also the author of Inventing the Immigration Problem: The Dillingham Commission and Its Legacy (Harvard, 2018). She also writes for popular press, including Lapham’s Quarterly, Huffington Post, and Politico.

MMoCA’s Spotlight Cinema features premieres of critically acclaimed and award-winning documentary and feature films. Curated by Mike King, Spotlight Cinema is held on Wednesday evenings throughout the fall; visit mmoca.org for the full schedule and program details. Admission is free for MMoCA members/$7 per screening for the general public. Ticket sales begin at 6:30 pm in the museum’s lobby. The series is generously funded by maiahaus, Venture Investors, LLC, and an anonymous donor.