“A Storm Foretold,” January 6 Documentary starring Roger Stone, commemorates the anniversary of the “With Intention” uprising – Specialty Preview

After the holidays, in the middle of awards season, it’s quiet for special openings. But this weekend it took a film: the Abramorama documentary A predicted storm by Danish director Christoffer Guldbrandsen about the MAGA movement and the 6th January uprising. The filmmaker captured footage from years of constant contact with Roger Stone.

So far, more than twenty screening dates have been booked over the next two weeks, including New York’s Quad Cinema, where Guldbrandsen will hold a Q&A throughout the weekend.

Stone was former President Donald Trump’s closest political confidant and the film spans several years to January 6, 2021. When Congress met that day to certify the election and declare Joe Biden the winner, Donald Trump was less than a year old and half gone, a crowd called a march to the Capitol. Hours later, five people were killed and 141 injured. With Stone as the main character, A predicted storm see the storming of the US government as a logical, almost inevitable end to Trump’s presidency.

“After consulting with the filmmaker, we consciously chose January 6,” said Karol Martesko-fenster, CEO and co-chairman of Abramorama. “It has to do with all the impending lawsuits and everything else and the nature of this film. I’m excited about the timing.”

Abramorama offers the film in theaters for a night or a week without restrictions – which also works, Martesko-fenster said. He is pleased with the early collection. The plan is to publish the document digitally around mid-March.

As Deadline reported, Guldbrandsen’s trip got caught in the middle of the Select Congressional Committee’s investigation into the uprising and at one point nearly cost him his life — a heart attack likely related to the stress of the project after Stone for ‘ withdrew from office a year. to film and inquired for $50. I then transfer the rights to another film crew. It failed and Guldbrandsen’s project was restarted.

“There is a social contract between citizens and politicians in democracies around the world – we accept that they lie. In the second half of the 20th century, it became part of the agreement between people, politicians and the media that connects them. It almost made us feel comfortable. But in 2015, something happened in America that felt very different. “I was fascinated by the extent of lies and especially making up entire stories just to influence political decisions,” he said in his director’s statement.

“I traveled to the United States and had the opportunity to interview Roger Stone and everything changed. Negotiations, fundraising, strategy meetings, hearings, oral orders, lawyers, billionaires, secret meetings, public hearings – today we took a wild ride through the centers of power, voting and the use of political influence in America. It wasn’t pretty and at one point it almost cost me my life.”

“What I’ve learned is that, as in all democracies around the world, there’s a sense that in America a profound transformation of democracy is inevitable, and that’s scary. . . . The loudest liar wins.”

“This is clearly not my fight. “I’m not there, but there’s no question what’s happening in the United States in terms of national presidential politics — which affects every modern democracy in the world,” he told Deadline’s Matt Carey.

Stone was convicted in 2019 of witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding and making false statements. He was sentenced to three years in prison, but was pardoned for one year by Trump in December 2020.

More special openings: Greenwich Entertainment presents ski comedy Poor layers by Katie Burrell, A Canadian comedian and winter sports influencer in her feature film debut. Co-written by Andrew Ladd, Burrell stars alongside Chelsea Conwright and Jadyn Wong in the story of three rowdy ski fans who, after being evicted, try to win a world-renowned ski short film competition to collect rent. You have to beat professional skiers and filmmakers.

The Lake Tahoe set celebrates mountain towns and embraces male-dominated ski culture. It is being produced by Realization Film, the same Tahoe-based company that made the documentary Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows avalanchewhich released Greenwich last year, currently on Netflix.

Unlock 65 large market screens, including ski-friendly metropolises and mountain towns. Next week we are expanding to Canada.

IFC Films presents French action thriller Bend! by Xavier Gens on 24 screens. A martial artist and ex-con (Nassim Lyes) starts a new life in Thailand to escape a local gang boss, but a kidnapped family member sucks him back into the underworld he left behind.

Paramount opens Steven Paul’s The painter starring Jon Voight and Charlie Webber on 31 screens ahead of its digital release on January 9. A former CIA agent turned painter is thrown back into a dangerous world when a mysterious woman from his past resurfaces.

And Vertikaal presents a thriller starring Jacob Elordi He went this way a limited release before a January 12 video date. The Salt burns Star plays a 19-year-old serial killer who is apprehended by a famous zookeeper (Zachary Quinto) on a desolate stretch of Route 66 with a precious cargo in tow. The first and last film by Australian director and DP Jeffrey Darling, who died in March 2022, premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Festival.

Extensions Take part American fiction (Amazon MGM Studios, ahead of nationwide release January 12); We are all strangers (searchlight photos), Anselm (Sideshow/Janus Films), Memory (Emic); Noryang: Dead Sea (Well, go to the US).