Transcript:
Speaker 1: You know, at at that point, I was really just following what was going on in Hungary. You know, there was much more consciousness all over Europe about how dangerous this was. It was clear that was also on, you know, the horizon in The States. What we saw and what we knew was very dangerous. You know, the threat to democracy all over the world is one of the biggest threats we face.
That’s why we wanted to do the film.
Speaker 2: Writer
Speaker 3: and philosopher, George Santayana, wrote in nineteen o five, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. That idea has clearly inspired filmmaker, Connie Field. Her award winning documentaries on politics, history, and social change help us understand today’s world by drawing vital lessons from the past. When women of the baby boom generation were flooding the workforce, her groundbreaking film, the life and times of Rosie the Riveter, revealed the powerful stories stories of women who worked in World War two factories. As voter suppression became a growing issue in parts of The US, her Oscar nominated Freedom on My Mind reminded us of the importance of voting rights by documenting voter registration efforts in Mississippi during the early sixties.
So what would you think now that Field has turned her lens on Hungary, examining the election, defeat, and return to power of Viktor Orban? The result is democracy noir, a timely and chilling look at how democratic institutions can be weakened and bent to become tools of authoritarian rule. Democracy noir is an urgent important film. We’re honored to share our conversation with Connie Field about the film and about the state of democracy on Inside the Art House starting now.
Speaker 2: Hi. My name is Greg Laemmle.
Speaker 4: And I’m Raphael Sbarge.
Speaker 2: And welcome to today’s episode of Inside the Art House. Today, we are joined by documentary filmmaker, Connie Field. Connie, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: So you, were, twice Oscar nominated, but, Oscar nominated for the film Forever on My Mind, which was a look at, you know, people fighting for their, to exercise their right to vote and and be participate in democracy. With your new film Democracy Noir, there’s maybe a level where we’re looking at that process in reverse. Care to discuss?
Speaker 1: Not exactly because a good portion of the film is about people resisting authoritarianism and fighting against it, which in this story, I think, is a vital important part of this story. The fact that through all the years of Viktor Orban’s presidency of Hungary, which he turned it into an authoritarian state, people have remained vigilant and have been out in the streets, and they never stopped. And the significance of that is what’s happening today. What’s happening today in Hungary is there’s a party that can really challenge Orban. They banned pride Yeah.
Or ban banded. It was against the law, and over 200,000 people were marching in the streets of Budapest led by the Budapest mayor. Alright? And these things can happen because people never get gave up.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So in that sense,
Speaker 5: there’s Yeah.
Speaker 2: No. In that yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Commonality with Freedom on My Mind. You know, also, I wanted to tell people Freedom on My Mind is on HBO Max, on the Turner Classic, movie channel, so you can still still see it if you’re interested.
Speaker 2: Terrific. Yeah.
Speaker 4: You know, Kai, I’m I’m aware of
Speaker 2: the fact is that, documentaries take an inordinate amount
Speaker 4: of time and and also planning and sometimes, you know, finding your way in to tell a story, particularly one with so much scope, can sort of happen in all sorts of, unusual ways. I guess I I wonder because so much of this is happening in real time. What was your foothold in to sort of start the conversation, as it were with and watch it, as it unfolded.
Speaker 1: Okay. Well, the first thing and most important part is my husband is Hungarian. Okay. So I’ve been going to Hungary almost every year since 1990, and we’ve been watching things unfold, you know, throughout basically the decades. Because of that, I feel close to Hungary.
I have a lot of Hungarian friends who I love a lot. And but what started this particular project, it was actually in 02/2014. We walked into the middle of Budapest in this square called Liberty Square, and there I found empty pillars, four empty pillars surrounded by police and everybody protesting. And what was going on there is Viktor Orban was trying to rewrite history. He very much took over the educational system, much like Trump is trying to do in our country.
He was trying to, build a monument that showed how much Hungary suffered under Germany during World War two as opposed to being Germany’s ally, which is the truth. As opposed to being the ones that the Hungarians rounded up their own Jews and sent them to Auschwitz. All the numerically, of all the European countries, more Hungarians died in Auschwitz than any other country.
Speaker 4: That was the wait. There’s a there’s a story to be told here?
Speaker 1: That Yeah. Yeah. And I I’m you know, I I just started filming.
Speaker 2: Right. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, I had my little still camera that also shot, you know, shot film, and I just started filming. And that’s also where I met Nico, the nurse
Speaker 2: who’s
Speaker 1: in the film. I met her then. She was very young. She must have been just 20 or something. She was there with her uncle.
Speaker 4: And Nico is one of the several people who you follow in the film throughout this trajectory.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Exactly. And Nico and I became Facebook prints. And so I I spent years following everything that she was doing there, but it was wasn’t really until around 2020, around there, where I started really trying to turn what I captured and develop a film. And that’s largely because of the pandemic. My husband had time to translate everything for me.
Speaker 2: I wonder I I was gonna ask you, how’s your Hungarian? I mean, clearly,
Speaker 4: you know, you you many of your interviews are in Hungarian. So so it’s remarkable.
Speaker 1: Yes. Well, he provided, you know, all the first translations and entrance in into everything. But hadn’t had time to to do all my transcripts for me, but we did. And so then then I started trying to work on the film and started trying to raise money for the film. It really wasn’t until I began a partnership with Sigrid Diker from Denmark.
The possibility of the film could really happen. I mean, she really made it happen.
Speaker 2: How how so?
Speaker 1: Well, because she came on board. She came on board, well, not officially in January 2022, but we’ve been working together the summer before. We were talking about the film. We were deciding we needed more characters than Niko. I then discovered Timia, and I discovered Timia on the Internet, basically.
And she speaks
Speaker 3: faster. She
Speaker 2: speaks faster.
Speaker 1: Yes. She feels so
Speaker 4: She’s so appealing.
Speaker 1: She’s so feisty.
Speaker 2: Yeah. She’s
Speaker 1: just feisty. Genuine,
Speaker 4: and she’s just so so likable. Winning. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And she speaks English.
Speaker 2: Yes. She does quite well. Yes. That’s also a great point. Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah. And, and and then also right before I was going to to film, I realized I must have a journalist really to tell the story.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: And that’s when I began seeking out journalists, you know, on Zoom and and landed on landed with Babette, who who was really, in many ways, like, a partner for me in this film. She she was phenomenal. I mean, we would go out, like, we took we went out to the countryside
Speaker 2: Yes. That would be
Speaker 4: with it. Right.
Speaker 1: Right. To see what those people really thought because that’s a huge base of Orban support, not Budapest. And so and in talking to people and I filmed it, well, she used my footage as a story that she put on on her network, partisan, which at that point was on the Internet.
Speaker 2: Right. Right. Right. Right.
Speaker 4: That was that was the reaction that she did. She sort of went went online to sort of because it started getting shut down. Right. That that was that interesting.
Speaker 1: No. Yeah. They went online, and she joined that organization. And it’s a great news organization. It’s won lots of prizes.
So we worked like that. I would like to say, oh my goodness. I I I must understand how the propaganda works
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Here in Hungary. So what does she do? She decides she’ll do a program on it. That’s me film her doing a program on it. So we basically really collaborated a lot, which was really marvelous.
And and so Sigrid came on, so I had the backing of her company. And it was really her company and my company that made this film happen. And other people came on, later much later.
Speaker 2: Well, you you mentioned Timya. So we we now understand the three characters. Let’s let’s meet one of them. Here’s a clip where we, sort of are introduced to Timya, who is an opposition politician in Hungary.
Speaker 5: In 02/2009, I was approached by the leader of LMP. Politics can be different. One of the parties, we needed to encourage people to participate more actively in the decisions that directly affect their lives and not let politicians alone, decide about the future of the country. So that’s how I I got involved. And in 02/2010, we had the national elections here, and that’s how I became an MP.
Social justice and environmental sustainability, that’s what I was hoping to achieve over a decade ago when I was young and enthusiastic. Now I’m old and enthusiastic, you know, I’m still here.
Speaker 2: Well, documentary succeeded. I mean, you think about Spellbound, you think about some of these other films, and it’s like, you look at it after it’s all put together and, you know, they they picked all the right people to follow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It it
Speaker 2: Sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw, but you you you really you you really did luck into three amazing characters.
Speaker 4: Well, even beyond that, I mean, here’s the thing that actually kind of, I think about. I mean, look, clearly, you’ve been nominated twice before. You clearly and and docs are are long and hard and require, enormous, kind of sensitivity and instinct. But this film knocked me out. It it it it sort of really stuck with me, and and I’ve thought about it, and I’ve talked about it to people because it, when you started it anyway, so prescient as to relates to what’s going on now.
I mean, you were you were pre pre the current administration, when you were starting this and and all of it all of the sort of the bubble ideas of it were happening. What’s incredible, of course, is it landing at the moment, with this sort of, as we’re watching in The US, sort of a hollowing out of democracy, and and as as you really show this man and his, playbook, for how it’s done? And and, I guess, before we get into the politics, because there’s something to be said there, but but what what I find what I find as a filmmaker anyway, which is so interesting is how you sort of again, you walked out you walked out, you saw this sort of, you know, bunch of people around the on the statue, and you were like, there’s a there’s a film here and and that you built this and you stayed with it as long as you did. And now it lands at such a sort of a a profound moment. I I guess I I I don’t know.
What what the question I’m asking is is how did you how what do you even make of yourself having sort of seen this now because it’s so relevant, because you did this so so ahead of the fact?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I mean, obviously, that that trajectory wasn’t exactly what I was thinking about in 02/2014.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That was even before, you know, Trump’s first term. Right. But but it was what we saw and what we knew was very dangerous. That’s why we wanted to do the film. And we we and and that it was a growing danger.
Okay? And that and we did a lot of filming that year, but it was really literally impossible for me to get it funded. I mean, it was not on anybody’s radar Yeah. And whatever. So it wasn’t.
That’s why I took it up later. But it it’s it’s I think it it’s because it you know, there was a dangerous trajectory Orban represented.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: You know, I didn’t know it was gonna you know? And, obviously, you know, after Trump’s first forage into trying to destroy our country, you know, it was clear that was also on, you know, the horizon in The States, but it wasn’t you know, at at that point, I was really just following what was going on in Hungary. And and also at that point, it it was, you know, there was much more consciousness all over Europe about how dangerous this was.
Speaker 2: Right. Because of because of, obviously, having
Speaker 4: gone through World War two and everything else and and Well,
Speaker 1: and more and more things happening in in countries all over Europe in terms of the, you know, the the rise of the right, largely because of immigration issues. That’s a huge issue in Europe. And in Europe, it’s actually what I call a real issue. I call what Trump is doing a manufactured issue.
Speaker 3: Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Right. Okay. It’s not a huge danger for The United States. And, yeah.
So it just I was riding, making the film, and this is what it landed in.
Speaker 4: Yeah. It’s like, essentially, like, you just caught the right like, you waited and then jumped on the right wave. I mean, it it it it lands at such an auspicious moment, in terms of what he lays out as relates to kind of a a handbook for authoritarian rule that then is really intent on on controlling all aspects of the government and and really shutting down any any other voices other than their own. And it’s, you also told it, which I find interesting too, sort of without a a kind of a cynical agenda, you literally just sort of stayed with the people, and and you sort of let them kind of tell it for us. And it and just sort of happens kind of, the way these things can, sort of simply and and all at once.
You know? Over the past six months or so as we’ve sort of been in this new trajectory with a new administration in The US, has it given you renewed kind of sort of fire to kind of get this out and launched?
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. You know, people’s ability to relate to this film after Trump actually arrived because I tried to get it out before he arrived because I was gonna I hope it would I I wanted it to help not have him arrive.
Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1: But but the reality was that, you know, it just what it didn’t catch people’s heads. Look. The Democrats went around the country talking about project twenty twenty five, which I think flew over everyone. Everyone.
Speaker 2: Most
Speaker 3: everybody said talking about a term
Speaker 4: paper or something. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It just didn’t. Then all of a sudden, when I showed this on January 20, right? After the election. Yeah. Yeah.
The inauguration, the night of the inauguration, I’m everybody went click
Speaker 2: click click click click click click.
Speaker 1: It it all of a sudden people could recognize recognize it. And what people, told me, which I was very pleased about, is that the film gave them a clarity of what they were in because it’s very hard when you’re on the ground.
Speaker 3: Right. Someone
Speaker 1: is throwing things at you. One of the which is Trump’s method. It’s hard to see it and hard to understand it.
Speaker 4: That’s that Steve Bannon method of kind of hitting it all hitting on all zones at the same time.
Speaker 1: Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. But by by seeing this, they they understood what they were in.
Speaker 3: Yes. It it had that
Speaker 4: effect for me as well. I I found it sort of profound and helpful because I walk around kind of in a turmoil most days, and and and and have to regulate my my news input, because of that. But but I I am, there was something about this that was sort of both sort of, terrible and comforting at the same time. I I hope that’s okay to say that, but I I I I I I’m not the film itself, but the what we’re watching. Do do you, how have the audiences now been responding to the film?
I mean, how how what in the have you had opportunity? Did you go to, to festivals and or did you have you had, public screenings? What what’s the what’s the role
Speaker 1: of and public screenings. You know, and it’s it’s basically you know, the film’s been all over Europe and many, many countries.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And, I’m just basically really getting it out now. Okay? It it’s gonna open in New York on September 5. It’s gonna be, you know, with you guys in LA, and it’s going to a lot of different theaters. Groups are starting to use it all over.
I really, really want to spend, you know, the whole next year getting this film out. Okay? And people, you know, people have related very, very strongly to it. And as I said as you said, it bring puts a context
Speaker 2: of what
Speaker 1: we’re living through. And the other thing that it does is it gives them hope because these people in the film don’t give up.
Speaker 4: Yeah. No. That’s a 100% right.
Speaker 2: So
Speaker 4: I I I guess I’m gonna ask you a very big question. You know, what what does democracy mean to you now, you know, now that you’ve been through this, now that you’ve seen this, and now that you’re you know, we’re all watching this in slow motion. But what you spent a lot of time making this movie, editing it and putting it together and telling the story. But what what what has that evolved to mean for you at this point?
Speaker 1: Well, I honestly think the the, you know, the threat to democracy all over the world is one of the biggest threats we face. I think that and climate change,
Speaker 2: the big Google issues.
Speaker 4: What is democracy? Because, I mean, clearly, I mean, it’s not is it a partisan issue? I mean, is it, you know, or or is it what what I guess, I’m I’m curious what you what do you what is it now? What now that you’ve made this Okay. Democracy is a
Speaker 1: system that was devised to give voice and control to the people. That’s its ideals. Okay? And it’s set up a system, you know, where where we can participate in the things that are happening in our lives as opposed to being under a dictator who controls everything in our lives or a king who controlled everything in our lives. I mean, the whole bad
Speaker 2: thing is tyranny of the majority if if you wanna go with the dogma.
Speaker 1: Well, or the tyranny of the minority, which is what we’re in right now. Right. Right. You know, I mean, it it certainly, that’s how I look upon. I know that it’s an abstract term, but to me, it’s very concrete in allowing us to create a world that I think is better for humanity.
You know? Because I’ve I’ve made films about a lot of issues Yeah. Of social, whether it’s women or whether it’s civil rights issues or whether it’s Palestine or whether it’s, I mean, all kinds of different issues. This is something that shapes all of those other stories. It it it’s like those stories sit on the fact in a democracy, those things were possible.
It was possible for us to fight for civil rights in this country and achieve many things, which we did.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: You do that through a democracy.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: So it’s and in in the first Trump administration, I guess it helped me understand how many holes are in our democracy Yeah. That make it not a democracy. Certainly, the senate doesn’t. That’s not democratic. Certainly, you know, lifelong supreme court, that’s not you know, all kinds of things were sort of able to see.
Wait a minute. These are things in our constitution that are a danger to our democracy. You know, the Hungarians had the same thing. In their new constitution of 1990, it has in the constitution, if a political party gets two thirds majority in parliament, it can rewrite the constitution.
Speaker 4: Aye yai yai.
Speaker 1: Why would they ever put that in? It’s crazy. But they did, and that’s what got them in their situation.
Speaker 3: Got it. Okay. That that was was And then
Speaker 4: I I thought maybe I was We need a process to
Speaker 2: amend these documents over time, but, you know, and that’s a super it’s a huge majority.
Speaker 4: And and with polarization, it’s impossible to make
Speaker 2: It’s impossible to achieve here. That’s what I mean. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, but there there, it was legal for him to change the constitution, and that’s what he did in 02/2011. And what’s amazing about what he did is that he put in everything he might want to do. Okay? He didn’t necessarily do it. You know, in the Hungarian constitution is the right of the fetus, but he has never moved on that in Hungary.
Women can still have control over their own bodies there, But he does have it in his constitution
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: In case he wants to use it.
Speaker 4: What what’s so what what’s so interesting about the man, of course, which is so similar, is, to our situation, is is that he has this astounding ability to hypnotize sort of a core group of, in this case, you know, more, I don’t know, I want to say a grarian or more peasant based kind of, you know, part of the population, maybe sort of less educated kind of part of the population, in Hungary. And and they and they are, they’re they’re with him. That, you know, he speaks to their heart and to their core ideals and to their patriotism and to their ideas of what matters, and and and they’re with him. You know? And again Well,
Speaker 2: he kinda uses an issue. An issue that presented itself, which was immigration, massive immigration of Right.
Speaker 4: And and Hungary first. Right? And and and, you know, I’m fighting for I’m fighting for you and and and all of that. And, obviously, also the EU money was very helpful,
Speaker 2: that that enormous kind of
Speaker 4: parade of of of, you know, whatever is dollars that came through. But but, but but that’s such an interesting thing, isn’t it? I mean, to be able to sort of hypnotize, sort of a part of the of the population, to be able to kind of get them with you even when you’re actually sort of undermining it at the same time.
Speaker 1: Okay. You know, there’s a lot of similarities between Orban and Trump. Okay? Though I think Trump is much more dangerous. Let me say that.
He’s much more dangerous than Orban is. But what Orban did, Orban was elected in 1998. He got he got, thrown over in 02/2002. Orban started his life as a liberal. Orban went to Oxford on a scholarship from George Soros, who is now made into the international boogeyman.
Speaker 4: Right. Right. Right.
Speaker 2: The local boogeyman. Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay. Then what Orban did after the the two zero two election, he was very depressed. He went about searching for a constituency and building his party all over the country’s side and finding out what those people what the core in those peop nationalism was very much one of the issues that he picked up on. So he kind of you know, he he directs his politics towards that constituency. It looks like Trump directs his politics towards what became mega
Speaker 4: Right. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: For his power.
Speaker 3: No. A 100%.
Speaker 1: A 100%. You you know that it’s not everything that Trump believes. You know he’s pro abortion. You know all of these things about Trump. Okay.
But they did that very similar thing, and that’s that’s what Orban did. And he he he crafts his politics to them. And, also, the issue of immigration in Hungary is very interesting to look at because it’s really an example of of creating an enemy, as Chymia says.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: And you’re gonna be the one who saves the country from that enemy.
Speaker 4: It’s the other it’s the other the othering.
Speaker 2: I’m gonna
Speaker 4: I’m gonna I think yes.
Speaker 1: And that’s exactly what Trump is doing. Yep. Yep. That’s exactly what Orban did. And Hungary was in no danger whatsoever about immigration.
Nobody wanted to stay there. It was a through route to get to Sweden and Germany. You know, Kimiya says that in parliament. You know? It that’s not what people were wanting.
Nobody was threatened, but he made them into a threat. And he made the EU into a threat. He made George Soros into a threat. You know? I mean, he’s got to have all these enemies that he’s fighting and and will save you.
Speaker 2: No. That’s that’s why I
Speaker 1: guess it’s such
Speaker 4: a it’s such a handbook.
Speaker 2: Well, it’s, yes. There’s a lot to be I I guess there are there are always things to be nervous about, but there are things to be inspired by. And and I think the film, you know, plays both those, plays to both those, those angles and does it very well.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, I and I I guess I just wonder I mean, people leaving the theater, do do you do you want them what what would you hope for them to feel? Sort of anger or frustration or or or clarity or discomfort or I mean, I I what it lands in any number of those, but I mean, I wonder what what you make of the reaction in terms of what what you hope for today.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope for clarity as they achieve some clarity about situation that we’re in through this reflection, like a mirror, and the importance of resistance, that they go out and resist by any means that they can do where they are. Because we have so many institutions under attack all over the country, whether you’re working at a university, etcetera. I mean, all our institutions are getting attacked, and so we can work where we are to to fight, and that’s what we need to do. We absolutely need to do that. And even though it seems impossible, even though it’s against, you know, big odds, you know, we are a bit luckier than the Hungarians in the fact that our two party system, we have two parties, and they both have a lot of money.
It’s not like the Democrats are suffering from poverty, which they were poverty of one
Speaker 2: sort or another, but not not a poverty of dollars.
Speaker 1: No dollars. They have another poverty, but hopefully, they’ll get out from under this, and we need to push them in that direction to do it, a new a new kind of party. And but, you know, it’s what we need to do.
Speaker 4: So resistance. I mean, because and
Speaker 2: that that
Speaker 4: is where I because I I I find myself so, again, also in a current situation here. And I and I’m you know, you have made a film about Hungary, and you have made a film about Orban, and you have made a film that’s, you know, I think that could be watched It’s
Speaker 2: a film about Hungary, but it’s a film about universal ideas. Right?
Speaker 4: Years and years. Yeah. But I mean, it is it right. It’s a universal
Speaker 2: it’s a Using Hungary as a as a as a way of looking at at
Speaker 4: Autocratic What
Speaker 2: happens? What happens when people willingly or or, you know, or unwillingly, in many cases, back this person who
Speaker 4: Right. But I mean, the the thing is that one of the things that is so frustrating, of course, at the moment is that is that there is so little resistance from our other party. That is the Democrats are sort of largely silent. And there’s also I keep looking for more opportunities for people to speak up. So I I love that what you’re saying, which is that, you know, at the end of the day, it really is about just continuing
Speaker 2: Well, just showing up in the streets.
Speaker 3: Keep showing
Speaker 2: up. Mean, you know, you can outlaw the pride march, but if we’re gonna show up on the streets, what are you going to do?
Speaker 1: What’s important about that? And this is what happened in Con Hungary that was very important. The importance of those demonstrations when you have a regime that certainly isn’t going to listen to you Right. Is to build solidarity amongst each other. It’s very important because you’re you’re out there.
You’re with, you know, hundreds, thousands of people. You understand you’re not alone in what you’re facing. All of us are here together, and and and we’re gonna we’re gonna let our voice be heard in the streets. Yes. That solidarity amongst ourselves is extremely, extremely important.
Yeah. Okay? And because Hungary was did that and because of that history of resistance, when an opportunity comes, everybody’s there,
Speaker 2: which
Speaker 1: is what’s going on in Hungary right now. So it’s
Speaker 4: So the secret the secret is out. People are people are savvy and are are are ready to ready to resist.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They’re already there.
Speaker 2: And they’re ready to you
Speaker 4: will, with this film, as you travel around the country, become, I believe,
Speaker 2: a kind of a, I wanna say,
Speaker 4: sort of an oracle as it were for, reminding people about how important it is to be able to continue to fight for their democracy because Absolutely.
Speaker 1: If they don’t,
Speaker 4: it it will it will surely, slip away. And and I know we hear that. I know that there’s all the fear mongering, etcetera. But but really, again, what you what you provide in this film is so practically just a a a checklist of how it how it’s hollowed out and how it what can happen. And I and that’s why I I I just think this this film is so, so important.
And I’m just I’m just I I’m just thrilled to talk to you and very excited about today to talk to you and and and about other audiences saying it.
Speaker 2: The film is Democracy Noir. It’s gonna be opening in New York City on September 5. Where are we opening in New York?
Speaker 1: At the Village East.
Speaker 2: Village East.
Speaker 1: I’m Delica’s Village East.
Speaker 2: And it’ll be here in Los Angeles at the Monica Film Center on December 19 and then rolling out around the rest of the country. Where can people go to get more information about when the film is coming to their community?
Speaker 1: They can go to our website, which is clarityfilms.org, 0rg.
Speaker 2: That’s clarityfilms.0rg.
Speaker 4: We’ll put it up on the side.
Speaker 1: And then they we’ve got some, things there. And, and we we’re doing more than just showing in the theaters. We have an entire impact campaign where we’re reaching out into communities. We have the, film available for groups to use and screen and do zooms and all the everything all at once.
Speaker 4: And you’ve got a fantastic distributor named Jeff Lipsky who’s gonna who’s gonna make sure everyone knows about it.
Speaker 2: I mean, kinda you talked about showing up in the streets and and and being there and finding, you know, common cause and solidarity. You know? You can find that in the movie theater as well. So if there’s a screening, get thee to the movie theater, see the film, you know, and join in the discussion afterwards about, about what you’ve seen and and how it applies to your life and your community. And that’s, you know, another great way to find common cause.
Speaker 4: Particularly if you’re feeling isolated, as I often do. Like, how I’m the only one feeling this, and how come there’s not it’s not louder out there? I think watching this in the theater would be really exciting, really exciting just to be in the community.
Speaker 2: And we have a community here as well at Inside the Art House. So if you’ve enjoyed this episode, please make sure to like and subscribe and follow us and share this episode, especially, you know, if you know people who are interested in this subject matter. Let’s,
Speaker 4: I know people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Let them know about the film. Yeah. And hopefully, this discussion is a good way to get them excited to see it. Connie Fields, wonderful having you here with joining us on Inside the Art House.
Thank you.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Connie.
Speaker 2: Day. Okay.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Guys so, so much.
Speaker 3: Our show was produced by Raphael Sbarge with on-site producer, Noreen (NARIN) Dickerson. Supervising producers are Thomas Cassetta and Miles McCreery. Our show was edited by Gabriel Laemmle and sound mix by Thomas Cassetta. Our musical theme is composed by Isabel Engman and Gerardo Garcia Jr. Marketing by Gabriel Laemmle. (LAEMMLE)
Show graphics by Jennie DeAngeles. Additional marketing and web design by Stephanie Peters. Filmed at the historic Laemmle Royal Theater in Los Angeles, California. See you next time on Inside the Arthouse. If you like today’s show, please consider subscribing to our channel to learn more on Inside the Arthouse.