SJLA + Basilica Present: Knock Down The House
Wednesday, July 10 | 1PM
Community Film Screening
// FREE //
Followed by a short discussion facilitated by the teens of the Social Justice Leadership Academy
Four working class women run for Congress, overcoming adversity to battle powerful political machines in very different American landscapes.
When tragedy struck her family in the midst of the financial crisis, Bronx-born Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had to work double shifts in a restaurant to save her home from foreclosure. After losing a loved one to a preventable medical condition, Amy Vilela didn’t know what to do with the anger she felt about America’s broken health care system. Cori Bush was drawn into the streets when the police shooting of an unarmed black man brought protests and tanks into her neighborhood. Paula Jean Swearengin was fed up with watching her friends and family suffer and die from the environmental effects of the coal industry. At a moment of historic volatility in American politics, these four women decide to fight back, setting themselves on a journey that will change their lives and their country forever. Without political experience or corporate money, they build a movement of insurgent candidates challenging powerful incumbents in Congress. Their efforts result in a legendary upset.
Winner of the Audience Award: U.S. Documentary and the Festival Favorite Award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, Knock Down the House joins these extraordinary women on the campaign trail as they mobilize their bases, engage voters, and build a movement during a time of historic volatility in American politics. Directed by Rachel Lears (The Hand that Feeds); written by Lears and Robin Blotnick (The Hand that Feeds)