“Treasures from the Yale Film Archive” is going online! To mark the 50th anniversary of the demonstrations around the New Haven Black Panther trials, be our guests for the preservation premiere of the documentary Mayday (1970), presented as a digital transfer of the Yale-preserved film, along with a one-hour conversation with filmmakers Nick Doob, Alberto Lau, Josh Morton, Andre Ptaszynski, and Michael Roemer.

In the spring of 1970, thousands of protesters descended on New Haven to demonstrate against the trial of Black Panther members for the murder of suspected FBI informant Alex Rackley. Led by radical luminaries Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Tom Hayden, the demonstrators converged on the New Haven Green to vent their anger and shut Yale down. Yale President Kingman Brewster commissioned a small group of Yale students to document the demonstrations, resulting in the 22-minute black-and-white film Mayday.

Both videos are presented with optional closed captions, and both are available for viewing through the end of May, 2020. Mayday was preserved from an original 16mm print and restored optical soundtrack by the Yale Film Study Center in 2016.