Bad Press (2023)
Director: Joe Peeler, Rebecca Landsberry-Baker Run Time: 98 min. Release Year: 2023
Country: United States
Language: English
Presented at the Film Center in accordance with Indigenous Peoples’ Day
About the film:
Special Jury Prize for Freedom of Expression, 2023 Sundance Film Festival
Imagine you lived in a world where your only reliable news source became government propaganda overnight. When the Muscogee Nation government abruptly repeals its landmark Free Press Act to muzzle the tribe’s hard-hitting news outlet, defiant and foul-mouthed journalist Angel Ellis charges headfirst into a historic (and surprisingly funny) battle to restore her tribe’s press freedoms.
An enthralling, edge-of-your-seat nail biter that unfurls with the energy and suspense of a political thriller, Bad Press (2023) is a timely and unprecedented documentary about a lone journalist fighting a corrupt system for her fellow citizens.
“the perfect illustration of what happens when you dismantle the Fourth and Fifth Estates and wind up putting democracy in peril… something everyone in America should be worried about right now”
—Jordan Mintzer, Hollywood Reporter
About the filmmakers:
Rebecca Landsberry-Baker and Joe Peeler co-directed the feature documentary Bad Press (2023), which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival where it won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression.
Rebecca Landsberry-Baker is an enrolled citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and the executive director of the Native American Journalists Association. She is a recipient of the 2018 NCAIED “Native American 40 Under 40” award and was selected to the Harvard Shorenstein News Leaders Fall 2022 cohort. She made her directorial debut with the documentary Bad Press (2023), which was supported by the Sundance Institute, Ford Foundation JustFilms, NBC, and the Gotham.
Joe Peeler is a Sundance award-winning director and editor whose work has appeared on Netflix, HBO, FX, ESPN, Hulu and CBS. He began his career apprenticing under legendary director Peter Bogdanovich, and from there edited Lucy Walker’s Academy Awards Shortlist documentary short The Lion’s Mouth Opens (2014). He also edited multiple episodes of the Netflix original series Flint Town (2018); and Margaret Brown’s SXSW premiere documentary short The Black Belt (2016).
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