In the King of Prussia

£37.50

Peace activists took direct action against nuclear missiles – the “Ploughshares Eight”.

SKU: 660
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Year Produced: 1982
Running time: 92 minutes
Trailer:  Watch on Youtube

Description

The story of the trial of the Ploughshares Eight made by Emile de Antonio. In September 1980 a group of Catholic activists including the Reverend Daniel Berrigan got into a General Electric missile plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, damaged several nose cones with hammers and poured blood over secret documents as a symbolic protest against the arms race and nuclear proliferation.

Antonio was refused permission to film the trial though televised trials are becoming quite accepted in the United States, so the film was shot around the trial and the actual trial reconstructed with Martin Sheen playing the controversial judge and the defendants playing themselves. “Nuclear Warfare is not on trial here” the judge says “you are”. Expert witnesses were not allowed to testify but the film includes interviews with eminent lawyers and psychiatrists as well as experts on U.S. military policy like Daniel Ellsberg of the Pentagon Papers. Berrigan asked Antonio to make the film because “I thought the trial had some unique features: we are defending ourselves and the judge was so horrendous, it sharpened the issues.” U.S.A.