Featured Documentary 1971: BIFF

This tense, heart-stopping documentary tells the story of five ordinary suburban Americans who, one night in 1971 (March 8, 44 years ago today), dropped their kids off at babysitters, broke into an FBI office and carted off thousands of paper files showing the FBI’s vast network of illegal surveillance of American citizens. Like low-tech Edward Snowdens, they shared fuzzy photocopies of these files with the press, which led to the first public Congressional investigation of a U.S. intelligence agency. A humiliated J. Edgar Hoover assigned hundreds of FBI agents to find this traitorous group, and one scary night dozens of FBI agents scoured the very suburban neighborhood in which these perpetrators lived. Surprisingly, they were never caught. But here they are in this film—for the first time ever—talking about their amazing, historic and sometimes comical adventures with the FBI.