DocYard: The Reagan Show

(Sierra Pettengill & Pacho Velez, USA, 2017, 75 min, DCP)

In-person Q&A with Co-Director Sierra Pettengill

The Reagan Show is an all-archival documentary about the original performer-president’s role of a lifetime. Teasing apart the spectacle at the heart of finger-on-the-button global diplomacy, the film follows Ronald Reagan's rivalry with charismatic Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, tracing how the Communicator-in-Chief uses his public relations chops to overcome Soviet mistrust, the objections of a skeptical press corps and the looming threat of WWIII. Chock full of wit and political irony, and told solely through 1980s network news and videotapes created by the Reagan administration itself, the film explores Reagan’s made-for-TV approach to politics as he faced down the United States’ greatest rival.