Election Day documents may become more influential after November 5

This year, documentaries focusing on pressing political issues including immigration, abortion and the Jan. 6 insurrection were poised to influence the 2024 presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and the former president. Donald Trump. While some, such as Errol Morris’s documentary on immigration enforcement, “Separately” and Matt Tyrnauer’s “Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupidity” had pre-Election Day distribution deals with MSNBC and CNN, respectively. There are many more documents that have been or will be independently circulated that American voters on both sides would benefit from viewing—even after the election.

As both Democrats and Republicans brace for possible unrest and protracted legal battles following the election results, documents such as “64 Days: The Road to Insurrection,”The Last Republicanand Zurawski v. Texas may have become more essential viewing than ever before.

Filmmaker Nick Quested joined the Proud Boys and other far-right groups in the months leading up to the January 6, 2021 insurrection. He turned his footage into “64 Days: The Road to Insurrection,” a first-hand account of the plot to steal the 2020 election.

Quested, who self-released the doc last month on Vimeo, says his film will remain relevant in the coming months.

“If Trump wins, I think it will be a protest film because that’s how (Trump) sets up his stool every time, and if Harris wins, it will be a warning of what’s going to happen again,” Quested says. “We see the same thing happening again and again that happened in 2020 after Biden was elected. The messages are the same. (MAGA) Questions Mail-In Ballots. Poll workers are trained to create pretexts for lawsuits. There will be pressure on elected and electoral officials in all swing states. There will be oversight boards that refuse to certify elections. There will be state legislators who refuse to certify the Electoral College. So ’64 Days’ doesn’t lose its relevance after the election because it’s really about the period between the election and Inauguration Day.”

Macy Crowe and Abby Perrault”Zurawski v. Texas” about the women who sued Texas after the state’s overly restrictive abortion laws nearly led to their deaths, was released in theaters in New York, Los Angeles and cities across Texas on October 25. The directing duo still hopes the Film will find traditional distribution, but they are “leaning into alternative distribution models” and will continue to do so after the election because they believe the doc is a bipartisan educational tool.

“I don’t think this election will change the immediate outcome of who has access to (abortion) care,” Crowe says. “So no matter who wins, Texas is still in the same situation as other states with abortion bans. I think people, families, men and obviously women all need to watch this film to truly understand what abortion bans mean in practice.”

Crowe adds that since the film debuted at the Telluride Film Festival, it has been used as a civil discourse resource to discuss abortion.

“People come up to us and say, ‘Wow, I can really use some of the stories I heard in this movie when I talk to family members or friends who might think differently about abortion than I do,’” Crowe says. .

Steve Pink also hopes that his doc The Last Republican, about former Republican US congressman Adam Kinzinger, who sacrificed his career by publicly demanding accountability for Donald Trump’s role in the 2021 insurrection, will also be used as a tool for civil dialogue these days. after the elections.

“Civil discourse is likely to be the key to the success of our society and our communities,” Pink says. “But we’ve become so polarized and there’s so much hate out there that the idea of ​​fighting opposing views of people, even people you love, seems impossible.”

Pink, a self-described far-left progressive, says he learned to talk to “the other side” while making the document.

“Because Adam and I became friends while filming, I felt much more comfortable arguing with him about things I believed in without the emotional strain,” Pink says. “What I learned and have become a better person in my life since then is to truly understand that everyone is your friend. Because if you think of everyone as your friend, you’ll be more willing to listen to what they have to say, even if the second they open their mouth you don’t agree with them. You’re not just going to blow them up because they’re your friends.”

“The Last Republican,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, will open in U.S. theaters on November 22, just over two weeks after the election.

“After election night, there will be fraud in an attempt to disrupt and undermine the integrity of the vote,” Pink says. “This could lead to very difficult times for America this fall and this winter. I want everyone to see The Last Republican, no matter what side of the political divide they’re on, because no matter what happens on November 5th, we all need to get better at understanding how to have conversations with the people we’re with. do not agree. »