Caucus

For the past 40 years, the race for the American Presidency has begun in the state of Iowa, where candidates spend months traveling the state's 99 counties hoping to win its “first-in-the-nation” vote and prove themselves a viable candidate.

In intimate, often funny and sometimes emotional detail, Caucus tells the story of the 2011-2012 campaign in Iowa as eight Republicans fight to become their party’s standard-bearer and take on Barack Obama. But to win, each has to first navigate state fairs, town hall meetings in pizza halls and agitated questions from the increasingly contentious GOP base.

Caucus is both a postmortem on the 2012 campaign, and a glimpse at the challenges that the Republican party finds itself still facing a year later.

Hotdocs Film Festival, 2013
AFI Docs – Closing Night Film
AFI Fest, 2013

“One of the great political non-fiction films of our time, a worthy successor to Robert Drew’s Primary and Hegedus/Pennebaker’s The War Room.” —Brandon Harris, Filmmaker Magazine

“One of the festival’s most memorable portraits… compelling.” —Eric Hynes, Film Comment

“The best campaign trail documentary since The War Room.” —Tom Roston, PBS.org