20th Anniversary Screening of PARADISE LOST at Alamo Drafthouse Brooklyn

Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn announced today that they will host a 20th anniversary screening of PARADISE LOST: THE CHILD MURDERS AT ROBIN HOOD HILLS, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's captivating documentary about the West Memphis Three, on December 14th. Co-presented by the International Documentary Association, this rare 35mm print screening will feature a post-film Q&A with director Joe Berlinger and subject Damien Echols, moderated by documentary filmmaker Liz Garbus ( What Happened, Miss Simone?).

"We've been looking forward to partnering with IDA, and I can't think of a better way to start than this special screening with Joe Berlinger," said Cristina Cacioppo, the New York Program Manager for Alamo Drafthouse.

In 1993, the bodies of three eight-year-old boys were discovered in a creek in a wooded area of West Memphis, Arkansas known as Robin Hood Hills. Three local teenagers - Jessie Misskelley, Damien Echols, and Jason Baldwin, outcasts known for wearing black and listening
to Metallica - were arrested and vilified by a community that saw the murders as part of a Satanic ritual. Despite questionable evidence, they were put on trial and eventually convicted for the murders.

The multiple Emmy- and Peabody Award-winning Paradise Lost, the first film in what
would become a documentary trilogy, is both a chilling epic crime story and a landmark of social activism which changed the criminal justice landscape forever. Hailed by the New York Times as "true crime reporting at its most bitterly revealing", Berlinger and Sinofsky's film combines its investigation with an intimate, transfixing portrait of a town torn apart by its response to a brutal tragedy.

Paradise Lost helped spawn a worldwide movement to free the West Memphis Three from their wrongful murder convictions, ultimately resulting in a death sentence and two life-without-parole sentences being vacated in 2011. The final film in the trilogy, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory,
was nominated for an Oscar in 2012.

Joe Berlinger's films include the landmark documentaries Brother's Keeper and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster , both co-directed by Sinofsky, who died in 2015. He most recently directed the Tony Robbins documentary I Am Not Your Guru. Following his release in 2011, Damien Echols relocated to New York City. He recently published a memoir, "Life After Death", about his conviction and eighteen years on death row.

Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills will screen at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn on Wednesday, December 14th, at 6:30pm with a Q&A with Berlinger and Echols to follow. Tickets are available via the Alamo Drafthouse website.

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