If there were any doubt that Hollywood is still enamored with former presidential candidate and current U.S. Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, look no further than the heavyweight filmmakers and top distributor who will mount the story of his historic presidential campaign.
“Mayor Pete,” directed by Jesse Moss, the co-director of last year’s “Boys State” and director of the 2014’s “The Overnighters,” will take the audience inside Buttigieg’s quest to be the first openly gay president in United States history. “Mayor Pete” will show Buttigieg at home in Indiana with his husband, Chasten, and go inside the campaign’s early days as well as Buttigieg’s historic, contested victory in the Iowa caucuses.
Moss and Amanda McBaine, the other co-director of “Boys State,” serve as producers of “Mayor Pete.” “Boys State” won the 2020 grand jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and sold at the festival to Apple and A24 for a then record-high $12 million. (That record was broken at this year’s Sundance by Questlove’s “Summer of Soul”).
“Mayor Pete” will be released later this year.
In summer 2019, Axios reported that film cameras were following Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, for Story Syndicate, a nonfiction production company founded by veteran filmmakers (and married couple) Dan Cogan and Liz Garbus. Cogan won the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2017 for “Icarus.” Garbus co-directed with Lisa Cortés the Stacey Abrams documentary, “All In: The Fight for Democracy,” another collaboration between Amazon Studios and Story Syndicate.
Both “All In” and “Boys State” were among the 15 docs recently shortlisted for best documentary at this year’s Oscars.
Cogan and Jon Bardin of Story Syndicate, and Laurie David (who won the Academy Award for documentary feature in 2006′ for “An Inconvenient Truth”) are also producers of “Mayor Pete.” Executive producers are Garbus and Julie Gaither of Story Syndicate, and Regina Scully.
Buttigieg dropped out of the presidential race on March 1 of last year, before the Super Tuesday contests, and after losing in South Carolina to Joe Biden. He became a vocal advocate for Biden, and regularly went on Fox News in the lead-up to the election to be one of the campaign’s most effective — and viral — advocates.
As Biden’s Transportation Secretary, Buttigieg serves as the first openly LGBTQ Cabinet member in U.S. history.
Moss and McBaine are represented by WME, Management 360 and Sloss Law.
Source: Read Full Article
