Prelude
What will happen six months from now, January 6, 2025, when Congress convenes to certify the 2024 presidential election? Will the truly elected candidate be confirmed, or will another — more successful — attempt to subvert American Democracy be unleashed. Will government leaders be prepared?
Real life ex-government and military participants are acting-performing in WAR GAME, such as Steve Bullock, Heidi Heitkamp and Wesley Clark and others. They act-perform in an immersive, fully-staged simulation in the White House Situation Room as if they are real-world confronted by a coup launched by rogue elements within the U.S. military.
[One in five criminal defendants of the 2021 Capitol attack were military veterans – NPR report.]
Collaborating with the non-partisan organization Vet Voice, directors Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber (FULL BATTLE RATTLE) expertly craft this credible nightmare — gaming out the unthinkable in a heartstopping race to save democracy.
WAR GAME had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and went on to play at CPH:DOX (Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival), DC/DOX documentary film festival, and more.
Jesse Moss’s films include the Oscar®-shortlisted documentary BOYS STATE (Sundance Grand Jury Prize, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary), THE OVERNIGHTERS (Sundance Special Jury Prize) and THE MISSION. Tony Gerber, an Emmy and PGA award-winning filmmaker, has directed over a dozen films for NatGeo. His feature docs include FULL BATTLE RATTLE, co-directed with Moss, THE NOTORIOUS MR. BOUT (Sundance Film Festival official selection), and he produced the Oscar®-shortlisted, Emmy-nominated documentary TAKEOVER.
Publicity Trending Virally
– “Excellent … A political thriller in documentary form.”
Bilge Ebiri, Vulture
– “A must-watch. Chilling and engrossing. [It] has a terrific sense of urgency and apprehension; it’s so engrossing you’re often sucked into the doc, forgetting it’s just an elaborate fiction. It all feels frighteningly real.”
Rodrigo Perez, The Playlist
– “A briskly paced, compelling docu-thriller perfectly timed for another hotly contentious election year in the United States… As engaging as it is thought-provoking, WAR GAME should attract US media and international outlets with an appetite for America’s instability, as well as news junkies who do not already get enough drama from the real world.”
– Anthony Kaufman, Screen International
– “As the game grows more complex, WAR GAME invokes footage not only of January 6, but of other flashpoints in American history involving protest, state violence or religious extremism — Kent State, the MOVE bombings, Waco and so on — building a tapestry of the past, as a chilling reminder of what might happen if warnings go unheeded.”
– Siddhant Adlakha, Variety
– “Like watching a slightly less absurdist version of DR. STRANGELOVE. WAR GAME forces us to imagine what we wish was impossible, so that we can keep it that way.”
– Sam Adams, Slate
Directed by Tony GerberJesse Moss and stars Chris Henry Coffey and Frederick Wellman.
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Editor, Publisher Gregg W. Morris
Can be reached at gregghc@comcast.net, profgreggwmorris@gmail.com