The White House Effect
Guests Expected
Directors Bonni Cohen, and Jon Shenk are expected to attend.
Description
Conversation around climate change often gets mired in the validity of the issue or the politically correct terminology for our rapidly changing world. Pushing aside all this noise, the latest film from esteemed local filmmakers Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos, and Jon Shenk, masterfully reconstructs the decades of failed US policy that led to the current crisis. Leaders from both sides of the political spectrum undergo microscopic analysis with particular attention paid to Jimmy Carter’s compromised environmental agenda and George H. Bush’s passionate support of the EPA (initially). Corrupting capitalist interests may sound familiar but what actually happened is much more complicated. The filmmakers’ deft excavation of the political chess that led to innumerable squandered opportunities for real environmental change is breathtaking. A stunning project of editorial craft and visionary archival use, this timely film holds up a critical mirror to recent history while illuminating a path forward for demystifying political obfuscation and challenging institutional power.
—Jessie Fairbanks
Bonni Cohen is the co-founder of the Catapult Film Fund and of the San Francisco-based documentary production company Actual Films. She has produced and directed numerous award-winning films, including The Island President (2011), The Rape of Europa (SFIFF 2007) and Wonders Are Many (SFIFF 2007). She executive produced Art and Craft (SFIFF 2013), 3 ½ Minutes, Ten Bullets (SFIFF 2015), and Audrie & Daisy (Festival 2016).
Pedro Kos is a director and Emmy Award-winning editor. His feature documentary directorial debut Bending the Arc (co-directed with Kief Davidson) screened at SFFILM Festival 2017. Kos’s prior work includes editing Jehane Noujaim’s The Square (2013), Lucy Walker’s Waste Land (2010) and The Crash Reel (2013), Jon Shenk’s The Island President (2011), and Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee and Gayatri Roshan’s Elemental (2012). Kos is from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and received his BA in Theater Directing from Yale University.
Jon Shenk is an award-winning director and cinematographer and a co-founder, director, and producer at Actual Films. He directed and photographed The Island President (2011), which won Best Documentary at the 2011 Toronto Film Festival. He was the director of photography for the Academy Award-winning short documentary Smile Pinki (2009) and won an Emmy Award for Blame Somebody Else (2007). Shenk directed and photographed The Lost Boys of Sudan (SFIFF 2003), a 2004 Independent Spirit Award winner, and co-directed and photographed Democracy Afghan Style (2004). Early in his career, he directed and photographed The Beginning (1999), a chronicle of George Lucas’s Star Wars: Episode 1 (1999).
Film Details
Language English
Year 2024
Runtime 97
Country USA
Director Bonni Cohen, Pedro Kos, Jon Shenk
Executive Producer Jenny Raskin, Geralyn White Dreyfous, David and Linda Cornfield, Philipp Engelhom, James Costa, Trevor Burgess, Maiken Baird, Adam and Melony Lewis, Russell Long, Shannon O'Leary Joy
Producer Justine Nagan, Josh Penn, Noah Stahl, Jon Shenk, Bonni Cohen
Editor Daniel Claridge, Pedro Kos, Sara Newens
Music Ariel Marx
Print Source Actual Films
Closed Captions Closed Captions are currently confirmed for this film
Audio Description Audio Descriptions aren't currently confirmed for this film
American Sign Language (ASL) Interpretation American Sign Language Interpretation is not currently scheduled for this film
