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The documentary Knock Down the House follows the political campaign of four women candidates running for contested seats in the Democratic Party. Three of them lost, and one of them is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.). After winning the festival favorite award at Sundance earlier this year, Netflix reportedly bought the documentary for $10 million for the documentary that follows the new Democratic celebrity.
Deadline revealed last week that Netflix won a heated auction for the documentary, and paid $10 million for worldwide rights over the film. If true, it would be the most expensive Sundance documentary to date, according to TechCrunch, it beat competition from NEON, Focus, Hulu, and Amazon to land the production, Deadline says.
Known Down the House was initially a crowdfunded initiative. The documentary followed at grassroots campaigns of four Democratic candidates focusing on issues around income inequality, healthcare, police violence, and the environment. The other three candidates featured in the documentary were Amy Vilela, Paula Jean Swearengin, and Cori Bush, running in the states of Nevada, West Virginia, and Missouri.
A news release published by the Sundance Institute last Tuesday describe the documentary as following “four women political candidates from around the country—a young bartender in the Bronx, a coal miner’s daughter in West Virginia, a grieving mother in Nevada and a registered nurse in Missouri—during the 2018 midterm elections as they took to the campaign trail, built and engaged their bases, and built a movement. ”
Rachel Lears, the film’s producer, t0ld Rolling Stone in late January that following the 2016 election, she wanted to find stories that would counteract “the cynicism and despair that a lot of us felt.” New York’s Jubilee Films produced the documentary.
Lisa Nishimura, VP of original documentaries for Netflix, told Tech Crunch: “With intimacy and immediacy, [filmmakers] Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnik, bring viewers to the front lines of a movement, as four women find their voice, their power and their purpose, allowing all of us to witness the promise of true democracy in action.”
No release date has been announced.
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