Educational Media Reviews Online

Ghosts of Attica is a hard-hitting documentary about the most violent prison uprising in American history and the cover-up that followed. Narrated by Academy award-winning actress Susan Sarandon, the film tells the story of the four-day rebellion in September 1971 which ended with Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s order to storm the prison. The lives of 29 inmates and 10 prison guards were lost in the nine-minute assault. Many lives were forever changed.

Featured are interviews with attorney Liz Fink and paralegal Frank “Big Black” Smith, a former Attica inmate appointed Chief of Security by fellow inmates during the rebellion. After the prison was stormed, “Big Black” was subjected to hours of torture with hot shell casings and cigarettes. Indicted of crimes during the uprising, “Big Black” was later granted amnesty by Governor Hugh Carey. Fink and “Big Black” began a civil action suit in 1974 seeking compensation for surviving inmates and their families. Multiple jury verdicts in their favor have been overturned on appeal. A settlement was finally reached in 2000 resulting in an award of $8 million to inmates, but no admission of wrongdoing on the part of the State. Reports of torture and slaughter of prison guard hostages were refuted by autopsy reports detailing deaths as a result of gunshot wounds.

Another powerful interview features former prison guard and hostage Mike Smith. After years of recovery and rehabilitation from wounds sustained during the re-taking of the prison, Smith was outraged by the lawsuit on the part of the inmates. He became politically active and helped form the Forgotten Victims of Attica, who are lobbying Governor Pataki for counseling, compensation, and an apology from the State.

This film is masterful in its portrayal of the fear, raw emotion, and lingering pain of Attica survivors. It presents brutal, graphic detail of an event indicative of a turbulent time in America’s history.