Conservative Filmmaking That Works

This year, Citizens United celebrates ten years in the conservative filmmaking and documentary business. We had the honor to work with Breitbart’s Executive Chairman Steve Bannon who directed and wrote Occupy Unmasked back in 2012. 

The film featured Andrew Breitbart and took on the mainstream media in exposing the Occupy Movement for what it truly was. Steve is an artist when it comes to making films that cut through the chatter like Generation Zero and The Hope & The Change.

Through this decade of making documentaries, I’ve been encouraged by the other conservative filmmakers who have emerged to make high quality films which tell the stories that Hollywood and the mainstream media don’t want you to hear. But much more work needs to be done.

This week, Director Ben Howe premiered his new film Bankrupt: How Cronyism and Corruption Brought Down Detroit. The film tells the story of how Detroit, once the most prosperous city in America, ended up filing for bankruptcy and is now almost $20 billion in debt. At the same time, General Motors has a cash balance of over $20 billion, yet still owes the American taxpayers over $10 billion while the company continues to benefit from the $18 billion tax gift from the bankruptcy.

How is it that the United States government decided that the auto companies deserved to be rescued with taxpayer funded bailouts but the city of Detroit wasn’t? This film explores how the federal government rewarded political allies and protected them from having to suffer the consequences of their poor decisions.

As a result, the auto companies did not fix any of their mistakes – something to be expected from a company that never experienced the costs of their errors. The same cronyism that existed with the automobile companies in Detroit was emulated by the city government, which led to a sense of entitlement among city employees to bloated pensions that simply could not be paid.

Bankrupt tells the story of Detroit through residents and images of the city, both past and present, as well as through a member of the Detroit City Council, reporters, and economic and legal experts. You can watch the entire film for free here.

Bankrupt: How Cronyism and Corruption Brought Down Detroit is a fabulous film, and thanks to Ben Howe and his team for making it. We need more conservatives to use their talents to create films like this, and the films we produce at my organization, Citizens United. There are so many gifted people in the conservative movement, and together we can create great products such as Bankrupt to influence the culture. Stay tuned as Citizens United announces our projects for 2014 and beyond.