Virginie Sélavy talks to William Fowler, archive curator at the BFI National Archive, about Peter Watkins’s uncompromising pseudo-documentary Punishment Park (1971) in relation to the rest of his work, in particular The War Game (1965), the influence of the 1969 Chicago Seven trial and the 1970 Kent State Shootings on the film, the improvisatory techniques used and the critique of the media’s pretension to present ‘objective truth’.

Peter Watkins’ The War Game will be released in a beautiful new dual format (Blu-ray and DVD) double feature edition along with Culloden (1964) on 28 March 2016 by the BFI. Punishment Park is available on Blu-ray and DVD from Eureka Entertainment.