FATHER ROY: INSIDE THE SCHOOL OF ASSASSINS is a documentary examination of the history of the School of the Americas (SOA) and the daring fight led by Father Roy Bourgeois to end the covert Latin American terrorist training conducted on American soil, and being paid for by U.S. taxpayer dollars. Produced and directed by veteran broadcast journalist Robert Richter and narrated by Susan Sarandon, the documentary premiered on select public television stations beginning in April 1998, weeks after Father Roy begins his most recent prison sentence for civil disobedience. Bourgeois will begin a six-month term for leading 600 protesters into Fort Benning carrying crosses with victims' names and black coffins filled with petitions bearing nearly one million signatures calling for the close of the infamous "killing academy." The public television premiere of FATHER ROY coincided with a massive grassroots rally at the White House, a two-day non-violent vigil on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, and vigils at U.S. Embassies in Latin America (April 26-28, 1998).

FATHER ROY is an ITVS presentation with funds provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The explosive one-hour exposé contains previously unreported information and picks up where Richter's 1994 Academy-Award nominated short SCHOOL OF ASSASSINS, narrated by Susan Sarandon, left off. New findings reveal the existence of a U.S. physician who used actual human beings as "guinea pigs" to demonstrate torture techniques at the School based in Panama. The Pentagon admits that torture training manuals were withdrawn in 1991, but had been used as part of the curriculum for seven years after the School had been moved from Panama to Fort Benning.

A decorated Vietnam veteran, Catholic priest, and founder of the grassroots organization SOA Watch, Father Roy Bourgeois has vociferously called the world's attention to the U.S. Army's role in training Latin America's worst human rights violators. His lectures, protests, and non-violent demonstrations have repeatedly landed him in prison where he has spent over three years of his life, some of it in solitary confinement. His actions have also resulted in three increasingly close but unsuccessful Congressional votes to abolish the SOA, and in 1996, led to a White House Intelligence Oversight Board report confirming most of the allegations against the school. On September 20, 1996, the Pentagon finally released documents confirming that from 1982 to 1991, the SOA used improper training materials which condoned executions of guerrillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion, and false imprisonment. The story ran on the front page of the Washington Post, and a New York Times editorial advocated the closing of the "School of the Dictators." What in the 1980s had been stereotyped as 'liberal paranoia' and 'conspiratorial nonsense' has in the 1990s been widely recognized by the White House, the Pentagon, and many in Congress as the true horror story of Latin America.

FATHER ROY: INSIDE THE SCHOOL OF ASSASSINS chronicles the secret history of covert commando training at Fort Benning, as well as the struggle to shut the School down. Archival footage, interviews with former soldiers who either graduated from the School or taught there, and conversations with individuals who oppose the School (such as U.S. Representative Joseph Kennedy), follow the development of a growing force of people led by Father Roy calling for the U.S. military to be held accountable for their actions.