T.A.P.E. is proud to present a screening of Peter Watkins’ (1935 - 2025) rarely screened final film, LA COMMUNE (PARIS, 1871) in its 208 minute theatrical version.

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Originally conceived for a French-German public television channel in 1999 but relegated to a single late-night slot, LA COMMUNE (PARIS, 1871) treats the often-overlooked 72-day long revolutionary blip in 19th century Paris as living and fertile material, a pretext for the disruption of the “Monoform” - a term the English-born director coined to describe the standardized visual grammar that pervades contemporary mass media.

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Watkins (director of bracingly experimental narrative and politically radical docudrama classics including PUNISHMENT PARK, THE WAR GAME and EDVARD MUNCH) cast around 200 amateur actors and used their real belief systems to assign roles and foster active contribution. The result is an inflammatory and euphoric reenactment of the 1871 radical utopia as if it had been televised and broadcast, an overt anachronism and revisionism that was a cornerstone of Watkins’ oeuvre. Rather than aestheticize and formalize distant times, LA COMMUNE (PARIS, 1871) is an epic and anarchic reincarnation of the event’s ideals and realities. Join us to pay tribute to the late master and his masterwork of revolutionary televised cinema! (Pauline Kraatz)

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dir. Peter Watkins, 2000
France, digital projection
208 min

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7:30 DOORS
8:00 SCREENING

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Presented by T.A.P.E. - a Los Angeles based 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to facilitating support for analog media through free digitizing, education, hands-on training, equipment rentals and volunteer opportunities. Teach, archive, preserve, exhibit.‍