American Politics All You Can Eat (2009)

In this drive-thru documentary enchilada, two friends, filmmakers Johl Smilowski, of Portland (Oregon), and Jordi Ortega, of Barcelona (Spain), embark on a quest to find the secret reasoning behind the political behavior of Americans. Shot on a poor-boy-sandwich budget, they found their answer at a really weird, more-surreal-than-Dalí, time: the four last days of the 2004 U.S. presidential election (a bizarre time for a culinary field trip, ain't it?). Deep fry immersed in the swing state of Nevada, with the city of Las Vegas on Halloween weekend as backdrop, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in full throttle, we see the second term of George W. Bush cooking, while the John Kerry souffle dries up in the oven. Was that thing on a separate pan the global crisis heating up? Could the financial meltdown have been prevented had things gone differently in '04? In this cheap shrimp cocktail of a film, more current today than ever, we shot everything that moved: Communist bunnies from Colorado, brave Texan Marines, a chicken-chef from New York, Latino casino workers, hundreds of volunteers of Driving Votes and America Coming Together (ACT), and Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn, among many other colorful characters. 2009 AOF-Action on Film Festival Alan J. Bailey Award "Best Political Commentary." American politics served Vegas buffet style!