Ahead of its release on Netflix on May 1st, the documentary “Knock Down the House”, by filmmaker Rachel Lears, the Rooftop Films and the Museum of Moving Image partnered to put together an outside screening of the film at the Windmuller Park, in Woodside on April 27. It was a chilly evening. The park is the Queens neighborhood of Woodside, which is part of 14th U.S. Congressional District that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez represents.

To take it back from the start, in November of 2016, the progressive movement in the United States, pioneered by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was still digesting the presidential election outcome. In response to the election of a Republic President, Justice Democrats, a grassroots Democratic PAC, held nominations and recruited potential candidates to run for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections in the USA. This candidates would belong to working class, not accept big corporation donations and hold Social Democrat values.

This film features four women mentored by Justice Democrats, who decided to run for office in the 2018 election cycle, challenging incumbent establishment Democrat congresspeople in their respective districts. The women portrayed in the film are Amy Vilela, running for the 4th District of Nevada, Cori Bush, running for the 1st District of Missouri, Paula Jean Swearengin, challenging Joe Manchin in the US Senate to represent the state of West Virginia, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, running for the 14th District of New York.

AOC won her campaign and now represents New York in the House of Representatives.  She was the only candidate featured in the film to win.  As it was stated by AOC in the documentary, “For one of us [women] to make it through, 100 of us have to try”. She belongs to a working class neighborhood in the Bronx here in New York City.  Her community is negatively affected by the power of money in the city.  It is all too common that people of color are pushed out of the way in the wake of “progress” in the city.  AOC challenged Joseph Crowley, the 4th biggest Democrat in the US House of Representatives up until the 2018 primaries. The fact that she is a former waitress and the youngest woman to serve in Congress is often held against her by the mainstream media

For this women, issues such as health care, environmental justice, police violence and economic crisis were directly affected their lives and their decision to become candidates in an attempt to make a difference for their communities. Vilela entered the competition after her 22-year daughter passed away due to lack of health insurance. Bush lives next door to Ferguson, where in 2014 there were protests against the assassination of African American teenager Michael Brown in the hands of the police. Swearengin belongs to a community deeply affected by the health problems caused by the coal mining in West Virginia. Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC, was motivated by economic issues.

The film gives the audience a fair taste of who the other candidates are and it transmits many insights into what a genuine grassroots campaign looks like.

After the screening in the park in Woodside, the director Lears was available for a Q&A section, in which she clarified that she has followed up with the other three candidates. She informed the audience that Cori Bush has already announced she will run again in 2020, Paula Jean Swearengin is also considering a run but is not sure for which seat, and Amy Vilela is intending to write a book of her journey into politics.

As for the documentary, watch it on Netflix, or go to a select movie theater where’s being shown. Also, visit their website http://www.knockdownthehouse.com for information of screenings in your area and how to show it in your community.