American Politics All You Can Eat

America: the biggest food market, the biggest restaurant, the biggest stomachs in the world! After the most expensive political campaign ever, microwaved at high speed, change came in 2008 with Barack Obama. The first black president in American history defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton, a.k.a. “La Presidenta”, and knocked out mavericks John McCain and Sarah Palin. But after 8 years of George W. Bush, the world is suffering a huge indigestion. Financial crisis… climate crisis… energy crisis… war crisis. There was a time when all this could possibly have been prevented: the last days of the 2004 presidential election, when the menu read John Kerry souffle, or George W. Bush barbecue ribs. Host and co-writer, Johl Smilowski, is from Portland (OR), and Director and co-writer, Jordi Ortega, is from Barcelona (Spain). What did the two of them have in common? They both shared the same curiosity to find out what was in people’s minds when George W. Bush got reelected. Did the ’04 elections put us on the path to the global meltdown? It’s sizzling hot and it’s here, and at happy-hour price. Ortega and Smilowski’s opera prima American Politics All You Can Eat feature-length documentary is a 7-Eleven road-trip narrative a la Kerouac that takes us back to the last four days of the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election as it unfolded in the entertainment capital of the “swing” state of Nevada: Las Vegas. Walking for miles and barely sleeping, the filmmakers found in the famous Las Vegas strip hordes of drunk street-intellectuals from all sides of the political spectrum, who were hungry to vent about their political views. In the outskirts of gambling paradise where many casino workers live the unusual storytelling pair chronicled the frenetic efforts of the organizations Driving Votes and America Coming Together (ACT) to take indecisive voters to the polls. Shot on a handheld $600 mini-DV camcorder and edited on a laptop.