UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- WPSU-TV and Penn State Dickinson School of Law will host an advance community screening of “The Central Park Five,” a powerful new PBS film from award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, on Monday, April 8.

The film tells the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of the brutal rape of a white woman in New York City’s Central Park in 1989. Directed and produced by Burns, David McMahon and Sarah Burns, the film for the first time chronicles the case from the perspective of the five young men, who served sentences of between six and 13 years each before another man confessed to the crime.

The screening will be held at 6 p.m. at the Greg Sutliff Auditorium in the Lewis Katz Building on Penn State’s University Park campus. It is free and open to the public, but a ticket is required for seating. Tickets and more information can be obtained at wpsu.org/cp5screening-tickets.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by WPSU’s Patty Satalia. Panelists will include John Kramer, Penn State professor of sociology and crime, law, and justice; Carla Pratt, professor of law and associate dean for academic affairs; Dwayne Wright of the Penn State Black Law Students Association; Louis Lombardi, columnist for the Centre Daily Times, attorney and former New York City police captain; and Paul Banach, law enforcement training specialist for the Penn State Justice and Safety Institute. There will be an opportunity for audience questions and comments.

Funding for “The Central Park Five,” a co-production of Florentine Films and WETA, is provided by The Atlantic Philanthropies, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Public Broadcasting Service and The Better Angels Society, including Bobby and Polly Stein.

The film’s national broadcast premiere is April 16 on PBS. It will air at 9 p.m. on WPSU-TV.