Postcards from the Great Divide (2016)

The nine short films from nine states that make up Postcards from the Great Divide, dispatches from the heartland produced by leading independent filmmakers, tell a story about the increasing partisan split among the American electorate.  How have national politics and money turned a local school board election in Colorado into an ideological free for all.  What happened to the once polite politics of Wisconsin.  How has the rural/urban divide in Minnesota, part of the Big Sort, played out in the life of one voter.  Would black voters in Florida still turnout without Barack Obama on the ballot and what would it take to turn out Mexican-American voters in Texas.  Could Republicans appeal to the increasingly dominant Latino electorate in Nevada and could the Democrats in Nebraska make a comeback to compete like they’re players in a two party system.  Where have all the Southern rural Democrats gone, as seen in Kentucky’s annual Fancy Farm political picnic.  These and other stories were part of a series produced for both the Washington Post and PBS.

Executive produced by longtime collaborators Louis Alvarez, Andy Kolker and Paul Stekler, who also made the films in Colorado, Kentucky and Nebraska.  Other films were directed by Laura Nix (Inventing Tomorrow), Brad Lichtenstein (As Goes Janesville), Heather Courtney (Where Soldiers Come From) Miguel Alvarez (Atlantic City) and others.

“Postcards from the Great Divide is smart, funny, fair and very human, all the things the politics ought to be.  Absolutely must see.” - Paul Begala

“This series is a home run.  These are vignettes that beautifully, though often painfully capture the human quality behind the bitter partisanship at the heart of our politics today.”  - Mark McKinnon