Event

Director's Statement

In the summer of 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and at the height of the protests for social justice, l began making a film about division in America. I immersed myself within groups from the extreme left and right sides of the political spectrum and asked questions such as, "What does it mean to be American?" and, "What do all Americans have in common?

As the summer heated up, what became increasingly more alarming was that across America, the disorganized rhetoric behind the divergent groups of far-right protesters started to find focus. Amplified by President Trump and his tweets, these radicalized Americans started coalescing around the #stopthesteal campaign, a grassroots political movement that sowed the seeds of doubt in the election and unified everyone with the common goal of keeping Trump in power.

As #stopthesteal grew, so did the extremists and their fervor. I reached out to Enrique Tarrio, the leader of the Proud Boys, and he invited me to embed with them at various protests and at his home in Miami. In a matter of months, I filmed a men's drinking club evolve into a militia vowing to control the streets. Soon, they'd become the boots on the ground catalyst for the January 6th insurrection and orchestrated and instigated a coup in plain sight at our nation's Capitol.

While I have covered many conflicts all over the world, never in a million years would I have ever predicted that one day l'd be filming on the frontlines of the battle for democracy in America at the steps of our nation's Capitol. Nor could I have ever imagined that l'd be sitting in front of Congressional hearings testifying to what I witnessed.