This Revolution

Filmmaker and activist Stephen Marshall, creator of the video news magazine Channel Zero and founder of Guerilla News Network, blends fiction with reality in this feature, shot in part during the 2004 Republican National Convention. Jake (Nathan Crooker) is a television news cameraman who has returned to the United States after a long assignment covering the war in Iraq. Jake is looking for work, but he doesn't always play ball with upper-level network heads, much to the annoyance of his girlfriend, Chloe (Amy Redford), a producer for a major cable news outlet. Adding to his mixed feelings about his job, Jake learns through experience that violent footage is what sells best, and that network higher-ups have turned over tape he shot of war protests to the Department of Homeland Security, violating his trust with activists attached to an anarchist collective. While in New York City to cover the Republican convention, Jake befriends a young boy (Brendan Sexton III), and in time meets his mother, Amy (Rosario Dawson), a pretty young widow whose husband died while serving in Iraq. Inspired by Haskell Wexler's classic Medium Cool, This Revolution made headlines during its production when Rosario Dawson was arrested while attending a protest being filmed for the movie.