Closing Night Film: Knock Down the House {New York Premiere}

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 build a movement of insurgent candidates challenging powerful incumbents in Congress. One of their races will become the most surprising political upset in recent American history.

Panel to follow screening

Filmmaker Bio: Rachel Lears is a 2013 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow and co-director of the Emmy-nominated documentary The Hand That Feeds (with Robin Blotnick). The Hand That Feeds was nominated for an Emmy in 2017, broadcast on PBS’s America Reframed in 2016 and won awards at Full Frame, DOC NYC, AFI Docs, and numerous other festivals on the 2014-15 circuit as well as critical acclaim during its 2015 theatrical run. Rachel’s most recent short, The New Fight For Voting Rights, was commissioned by SundanceNow Doc Club (2016). Rachel is bilingual in Spanish, and holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and a graduate certificate in Culture and Media from NYU, and a BA in Music from Yale. In addition to her own work, her cinematography credits include Netizens.