And Again
Director Adele Horne
Countries United States
Duration 56 min
Synopsis
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security considers the town of Playas, New MX a useful location for simulating domestic terrorist attacks because it contains over two-hundred homes, a town store, bowling alley, two churches, and a baseball diamond—but almost no residents. Built in the 1970s by a mining company, Playas became a ghost town when the smelter closed in 1999. In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security turned Playas into an “Any Town, USA” stage set for training emergency crews to respond to incidents of domestic terrorism. Local people who live in the economically depressed region are hired as day laborers to play the roles of terrorists and victims in simulated bombings and hostage scenarios. The filmmaker collaborated with several of the terrorist/victim role-players to stage scenes that tell the story of Playas, as they see it. The film creates a space for vieers to contemplate how the region’s past and future are currently being imagined and enacted.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security considers the town of Playas, New MX a useful location for simulating domestic terrorist attacks because it contains over two-hundred homes, a town store, bowling alley, two churches, and a baseball diamond—but almost no residents. Built in the 1970s by a mining company, Playas became a ghost town when the smelter closed in 1999. In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security turned Playas into an “Any Town, USA” stage set for training emergency crews to respond to incidents of domestic terrorism. Local people who live in the economically depressed region are hired as day laborers to play the roles of terrorists and victims in simulated bombings and hostage scenarios. The filmmaker collaborated with several of the terrorist/victim role-players to stage scenes that tell the story of Playas, as they see it. The film creates a space for vieers to contemplate how the region’s past and future are currently being imagined and enacted.