In Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber’s documentary “War Game,” the directing duo map out what America’s next coup d’état might look like.
The 94-minute docu takes place on Jan. 6, 2025 – four years after the 2021 Capitol insurrection. Moss and Gerber chronicle an elaborate simulation that dramatically escalates the threat posed by the recent insurrection and re-imagines a nation-wide insurrection in which members of the U.S. military defect to support the losing presidential candidate, while the winning candidate and his advisors war game the crisis in a makeshift White House situation room. The film follows a bipartisan group of U.S. defense, intelligence, and elected policymakers spanning five presidential administrations as they participate in a six hour, unscripted role-play exercise meant to save democracy as America teeters on the brink of civil war.
The doc, which premiered at Sundance 2024, was not picked up by a major streamer, which isn’t exactly surprising given streamers’ lack of interest in anything that touches politics. Instead, Submarine Deluxe and Decal Releasing acquired “War Game” earlier this month; they will release the doc on Aug. 2 at Manhattan’s Film Forum. That will be followed by a Los Angeles and Chicago run beginning on Aug. 9.
Submarine is a hybrid sales, production and distribution company founded by brothers Dan and Josh Braun.
“Submarine’s theatrical releasing division, Submarine Deluxe, is thrilled to be releasing ‘War Game,’ which we believe is incredibly timely and has a large identifiable audience and thus has the possibility of working theatrically in a time when independent theatrical releases have struggled,” says Josh Braun. “It is an important and thought provoking film that everyone needs to see.”
In addition to “War Game,” Submarine Deluxe has theatrically released Academy Award-nominated docus including “All that Breathes,” “Chasing Ice,” and “Peggy Guggenheim Art Addict.”
Boat Rocker is overseeing international distribution of “War Game.”
Both Moss and Gerber are keen on getting the film in front of both Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. prior to the upcoming 2024 presidential election.
“As the divisions in our country widen, we were excited to discover a space in which a group of Americans — drawn from both major parties and the last five Presidential administrations as well as non-partisan veterans of the US military — would gather to confront the most dangerous of threats to American democracy,” says Moss.
In addition to major U.S. cities, the film team plans on screening the documentary in as many purple states as possible.
“Our film is not about voting one way or another,” says Gerber. “It’s about dialing down the noise to get to some core principles that hopefully we can all agree upon. The role players in our film are drawn from each of the past five presidential administrations. Do the math. The cast in our fictional White House Situation Room couldn’t be more bi-partisan.”
Most recently “War Game” screened in Washington, D.C., at DC/DOX and at the Nantucket Film Festival.
Moss describes the film’s trailer, given exclusively to Variety, as a clip that “captures the thrilling real-time intensity of a President and his advisors attempting to avert a civil war, in an exercise that is part documentary, part improvisational theater and part dystopian science-fiction.”
Check out the trailer below.
Source Agencies
