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Blue Donkey & Red Elephant – Manufacturing a social division

Direction, filming & editing: Jens Schwarz / D, USA, UK 2021 / color, b&w / 42 min

On 6 January 2021, an angry mob of supporters of the 45th president of the United States, who had already been voted out of office, stormed the parliament building on Capitol Hill. What will go down in history as the “Capitol Riots” was only the most media-effective culmination of a longer process of polarisation, which was driven forward with particular ardour during Donald Trump's term in office.

The feature length documentary film “Blue Donkey & Red Elephant” explores the dichotomous political identities within American society and investigates the promoted and propagandised narratives of its division.
Based on and formally structured by statements from interviews with protagonists from both camps, the film openly looks at different ways of life, social settings, perceptions and behaviours within the political spectrum.

Using the foreground of the political campaigning ahead of the 2020 Presidential Election and the electoral fracas during the 2020 Primaries, the film investigates the sociological background and establishes a deep and subtle audiovisual narrative about what has been strategically constructed, maintained and exploited as a so called social division.

Produced in the context of my postgraduate research project at MAPJD - University of the Arts, London
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