If those who stormed the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021 appeared unsuccessful in overturning the results of the U.S. presidential election, ask anyone that documented that day to commit it the record how much success they may have ultimately had in rewriting American history.
“The response in Europe has been overwhelming and we have broadcasts in the Netherlands and Spain and Germany. We were number six or five on a streaming service doc player in New Zealand and Australia,” says Michael Premo, who spent years in the lead-up to 2020 keeping the camera rolling for “Homegrown” as he tracked far-right groups that were seeking out increasingly violent forms of demonstration before ultimately breaking into the House of Representatives. “But the responses that we’ve gotten from American broadcasters have been wild. Folks have been individually deeply moved and being like, ‘Oh, I grew up in this particular area and I know two of these people in this film’ or ‘America needs to see this film, but we can’t broadcast this. We’re going in a different direction. It’s too political, it’s too hot button.’ So it’s been wild to bump up against that.”
Premo is marking the fifth anniversary of the insurrection by distributing “Homegrown” on his own, a film that joins Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine’s ticking clock account of the terrifying day “The 6th” as a critical document in how we ended up in such polarized times. (That film also ended up with a bespoke release in spite of having the backing of A24.) Although it’s a time that no one on either side of the political divide wants to remember for different reasons, “Homegrown” proves to be compelling as it follows a pair of men who defy easy categorization, though they are both on the far right and have become fully invested in keeping Trump in office.
Well before the events of the 6th, Premo rides along with Chris, an electrician from New Jersey, as he spends his free time as part of Trump trains, caravans of trucks that ride throughout New York draped in Make America Great Again flags, and Thad, a Proud Boy who will drive his own pickup through the streets of Texas as a part of such demonstrations as a member of the Proud Boys. Yet neither have consistent ideologies, with Thad inviting the leader of a regional Black Lives Matter chapter to join him when his radicalization began with police reform after being pulled over too many times as a result of what he felt was racial profiling, and Chris, a soon-to-be-father telling himself he’s fighting for the future of his unborn child but clearly negligent of bearing any responsibility as he’s often away from his pregnant wife who wishes he would spend more time at home. With the time Premo puts in, both the contradictions of their positions and their increasing radicalization can be seen starkly in the months leading up to the insurrection attempt and while it remains chilling to watch the nation’s capital under siege, what’s equally unnerving is how short a distance it seems Chris and Thad are from most Americans, facing similar socioeconomic circumstances yet arm themselves as a solution.
With the film now more relevant than ever as it becomes clear that downplaying this history has led those in power to act with greater impunity when they feel there are no consequences, Premo spoke about what why it was important to make the film, seeing the connections between MAGA and movements with far different supporters and the ongoing reverberations of what he and producer Rachel Falcone were able to capture as a mostly two-person crew since its premiere at the Venice Film Festival in 2024.
How’d this come about?
We had the idea around 2016 as we saw the backlash to Obama. We saw something bubbling within the conservative movement as all these different types of conservatives were finding alignment and we heard this increasing chatter that people were feeling like maybe violence was the only way to solve the current partisan divide. We wanted to understand who was thinking that way and what was was motivating them and we set out to find publicly listed events on Facebook and Twitter where people were gathering and to voice their discontent, particularly among conservatives. We started going to rallies and meetings and bars and places where people were hanging out and [asking], “What has brought you here? What is your beef?” And that really put us down a path and allowed us to pick up our cameras and start rolling in 2018.
How did Thad and Chris come to your attention as people to follow?
When we started this project, we followed about 12 people from across the country and it wasn’t until we got into the edit where we had to make very hard choices around who we included in the film and who didn’t quite make the cut. We had seen Thad on a bunch of live streams and I had met him a number of times at rallies over a course of a year from 2020. We just started talking and I was particularly intrigued why somebody who appears to be a Latino man would be in the center of this movement and we asked if we could follow him and did some extensive vetting [as well as] some of his Utah Proud Boy chapter at the time. They were like, “Hey, if you wanna follow us, come follow us.”
It was similar with Chris, [who] we met in New York City, [either] at Times Square or in front of Trump Tower. These New York conservatives would come into the city and just wave these massive flags and I would go to these events and start talking to people. The reason why we were so intrigued by Chris, or one of the big reasons was because he’s someone who self-identifies as not being political before 2015. But he told us there was something about Trump riding down that elevator and that speech that he gave and everything afterwards that got him really motivated and inspired to be involved in politics. He said, before that, he was mildly aware of Clinton in high school and he thinks he might’ve voted for him, but he was too young to vote. Then after that, he never really paid attention to politics until Trump. And I think he represents a a broad swath of the electorate that is newly engaged in politics in a way that is really fascinating.
You were on the ground for Occupy Wall Street as well and it’s certainly not a direct parallel, but what seems striking about both of these events is the varied group of people that got behind the cause. Did your previous experience give you a certain understanding of this?
Absolutely. I think some of the parallels are exactly what you’re talking about where people are just incensed and feel aggrieved by economic inequalities where these billion dollar banks are getting bailed out while individuals can’t pay their mortgage or their rent, that attracts this cross-section of society. That was very similar to what we saw among this conservative movement. The other similarity is the grievance about both economic and cultural instability, where the definitions that we thought held our world together aren’t quite holding and people are just thirsty for meaning and purpose and understanding, and in this current moment of upheaval, people are less drawn by ideology and much more by the grievance and trying to make meaning of what’s happening.
Did anything happen that changed your idea of what the story here was?
January 6th. It’s probably obvious, but before we were following people and there wasn’t that cataclysmic event and then when January 6th happened, the film really wanted to have people who were flowing towards and through January 6th. Some of the other people that we were filming weren’t so catalyzed and energized by it, so they became less obvious storylines.
Was it difficult to maintain access as these increasingly illegal activities were taking place? Chris, more than a few times, talks about how nervous he is about getting caught.
I think that’s the case with documentaries regardless of the topic. It’s always a constant process of conversation to be able to maintain relationships so that you can keep filming and keep having access. Surprisingly for this film, that didn’t really come up after a while. We were in a flow and they recognized that they had allowed us into their lives and just proceeded as is and we were just there to capture it.
As you approached January 6th, did you think of getting a bigger crew or keep it small?
When we started, we had designs on a bigger crew and some of that was determined by the pandemic. Rachel Falcone, my producing partner, also does sound for motion pictures, so she was producing and then doing sound and through a combination of health and safety concerns that came up during the pandemic and we were making this film over the arc of the pandemic, so it just kind of made sense for us to be as light as possible. Being in these high pressure, frenetic scenarios, having a small, slimmed down crew was really advantageous. There were a few shoots where we had another cinematographer come with us when the things started to open up later on in the pandemic, but it was really just the two of us for most of the film.
Theater fans like myself will surely take notice that Lynn Nottage is in the credits as a story consultant, which seems unusual for a documentary. How did she come into the mix?
I went to drama school and my background really is in acting and then producing and making theater in ensemble ways. I worked on a play years ago with Lynn Nottage and she’s always just been such a kind, wonderful friend, so she was gracious enough to watch cuts [of “Homegrown”] along with her husband, Tony [Gerber, who co-directed “War Game” with Jesse Moss], who is an acclaimed documentarian in his own right, and give us feedback.
What’s it been like to see the response to this so far, especially when the year after it premiered at Venice coincided with the second election of Trump?
I haven’t settled yet on the right analogy or metaphor, but it’s like getting whiplash every two or three months with this film. I’ve never worked on a film where its social and cultural significance changes and redefines itself every month or two with some crazy national event. Like an attempted assassination attempt happens, the film gets new relevance and the context of what people are looking at in the film slightly shifts from this to that. It’s been wild to make a film like this, where that evolution is constantly changing based on what’s happening in the world, so it’s going to be exciting for people to experience the film this month, but also in the next 10 years.
“Homegrown” is available to watch on its official site, powered by GATHR, starting on January 6th.