Knock Down The House Knock Down The House

Meet the Filmmakers

The Team

Rachel Lears

Writer, Producer, Cinematographer, Director

Rachel Lears is a documentary director, producer and cinematographer based in Brooklyn, NY. Her first feature The Hand That Feeds, about undocumented immigrant workers organizing at a New York deli, was nominated for an Emmy in 2017. Rachel is a 2013 Sundance Creative Producing Fellow, has a PhD in Cultural Anthropology, and is the mother of a four year old son.

Robin Blotnick

Writer, Producer, Editor

Robin Blotnick debuted as a feature documentary director and editor with the experimental ethnographic film Gods and Kings (winner of the “Intangible Culture Prize” at the 2013 RAI Ethnographic Film Festival) and went on to edit and direct (with Rachel Lears) the Emmy-nominated The Hand That Feeds. His archival collage City of Movement is currently playing on infinite loop at the Museum of the City of New York.

Sarah Olson

Producer

Sarah Olson developed and produced the highly acclaimed documentary FED UP, for Atlas Films, which premiered at Sundance in 2014. Named as a NYT Critics Pick and “a movie that matters” by Rolling Stone, FED UP was acquired by Radius/TWC and received a broad theatrical release. While at Atlas Films, Sarah line produced the 2009 documentary Tapped, which won six awards for Best Documentary Feature at festivals around the country.

David Teague

Consulting Editor

Ryan Blotnick

Original Music

Regina K. Scully

Executive Producer

Stephanie Soechtig,
Kristin Lazure

Executive Producers

Chicago Media Project,
Wavelength Productions

Co-Executive Producers

Cherry Graziosi

Co-Producer

Hermon Farahi

Co-Producer/ Additional Cinematography

David Sampliner

Additional Cinematography

Doug Anderson, Rachel Falcone, Aisha Hallgren, Rodrigo Salvatierra, Andy Ramirez

Sound Recordists

Ben Radatz

Title Sequence Design & In-Film Graphics

Charlie Rokosny

Digital Intermediate Colorist

Mike Frank

Supervising Sound Editor, Dialogue Editor and Re-recording Mixer
Full list of credits on IMDB

Partners

Knock Down The House was made possible with support from

The Doc Society

IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund

Artemis Rising Foundation

Chicago Media Project

Wavelength Productions

Cherry Graziosi

Perspective Fund

Threshold Foundation’s High Impact Documentary Funding Circle

The Gucci Tribeca Documentary Fund, with support from Oath Foundation

The Solidaire Action Fund & Members of the Solidaire Network

Agnes Gund, Becky Silverstein & Naomi Sobel, Micky McKinley, Molly Gochman, Marc N. Weiss, Catherine Gund, Susan & Charles Sawyers, Monica George, Sarah Frank, Abraham Leo Lateiner, Greg Jobin-Leeds & Alexie Torres-Fleming, Marie Fox, Lynn & Richard Voelbel, Cynthia Beard & Gary Roland, Erika Leaf

Nancy Blachman

Betsy & Jesse Fink

Mac Heller

Jules Bernstein and Linda Lipsett

Puffin Foundation

Sue Penchina

Brooke Kennedy

Our Kickstarter backers

with special thanks to: Anonymous, Jennifer Adair, Jenny Backus, Donna & Jerry Blair, Andrew Bossie, Joe Calarco, Ryan Constantinovich, Greg Conti, Paula Creary, Andrew Dennis, Carl Denyer, Sue Elam, Maritza Fitzgerald, Richard Fox, Clark Freifeld, Gary Friedmann, Glenn Good, Susanae Glovacki & Dick Hoch, Bill Grabin, Joanna Hicks, June Blotnick, Simon Higgs, Ronald Howell, Anne Knop, Beverly Kornell, Adin Lears, Mahoma Lopez, Kami Malwatte, Daphna Mitchell, Sean Mitchell, Charlie, Sally, James & Wells Moravitz, Kevin Nelson, Jodeen Olguin-Tayler, Edie Ortenberg, Ken and Julie Plax, Michael Premo, Scott Ramsey, Barbara Reilly, Lyel Resner, Roshun Shah, Michael Smith, James Stoehr, Elina Sverdlova, James Terp, Bob-Kristina Tusini, Lance Warren + Hannah Ayers, Mary Ellen Wilson, Ben Yu

And other private donors large and small

The Story

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.

Meet The Filmmakers

Jubilee Films Enterprise Documentary Fund Gucci Chicago Media Project Solidaire Threshold Foundation Perspective Atlas Films Artemisrising Foundation Doc Society Tribeca Film Institute Oath The Puffin Foundation IFP