00:00Congratulations on this. You wrote this in 2020. How are you now feeling releasing this
00:05four years later in this climate and six months before the election?
00:10It's odd, actually. It's slightly weird that it took four years. COVID obviously pulled two years
00:20and well, no, we squeezed in before the strikes. So we were post-COVID before strikes. But yeah,
00:27it's strange. And it's really strange, just the sense of déjà vu, that it was what happened to
00:38the intervening four years in some respects. I think the film was written really not just about
00:45this country, about a weird state we're in to do with division and polarization and extremism,
00:54the things that flow from populism. And I don't think I would have imagined that if I had projected,
01:05at the moment I wrote it, I don't think I imagined it would take four years to get to this point.
01:09But also if it did take four years, things would be so similar, so surprising, maybe.
01:16And putting California and Texas on the same side has kind of gotten a lot of attention.
01:20Why did you kind of decide to do that?
01:22I mean, I'm not exactly sure I should explain that too much, but obviously it was intentional.
01:35Partly to get around a kind of reflexive, polarizing position that people might fall into.
01:44That's one thing, but actually that's not the main thing. The main thing is to do with how the president
01:51is presented and what can be inferred from that. So the president is acting in a fascistic manner,
02:03has dismantled one of the legal systems that could threaten him, has made themselves into a three-term
02:11president, which is constitution smashing, and is being violent to his own citizens, essentially.
02:19So then it's saying that two states that have a different political position have said,
02:25our political difference is less important than this. And then the counter to that is,
02:34if you cannot conceive of that, what you're saying is that your polarized political position
02:40would be more important than a fascist president, which, when you put it like that, I would suggest
02:48is insane. That's an insane position to hold. So it's a sort of a bleak commentary. And I think
02:58that's how the film works in general. It's not explaining this stuff, but it's also not avoiding this stuff.
03:04It's present, but it's via conversation, if you see what I mean, maybe.
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