This film is part of our series THE FUTURE WE LIVE IN, showing in March and April at De Uitkijk.
This pseudo-documentary is set in a dystopian near-future America. When the president unilaterally declares a state of emergency, it grants authorities the power to detain anyone they deem a “threat to national security.” As prisons overflow, an alternative solution is introduced: Bear Mountain Punishment Park, an isolated detention camp in the scorching heat of the California desert.
Through the lens of a European documentary crew, we follow a group of young anti-war activists as they are imprisoned and relentlessly hunted down within the park.
Punishment Park is a harrowing reflection on violence and authoritarian power in the United States. The themes explored in this fictional narrative feel eerily relevant today—a chilling warning of a future that increasingly resembles reality.