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Ahead of the election, a landslide of documentaries

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This combination photo shows poster art for political documentaries, from left, "All In: The Fight for Democracy," "Boys State," "537 Votes," "Slay the Dragon," and "The Fight." The election has unleashed an avalanche of documentaries like no season before it. Dozens of films, exploring issues from gerrymandering to white supremacists, have sought to illuminate the many issues and trends voters are confronting at the polls on Tuesday. In a presidential election of enormous stakes, filmmakers have rushed to finish their films before Election Day. (Amazon, from left, Apple TV Plus, HBO Max, Magnolia Pictures, Magnolia Pictures via AP)

NEW YORK ā€“ The election has unleashed an avalanche of documentaries like no season before it.

Dozens of films, exploring issues from gerrymandering to white supremacists, have sought to illuminate the many issues and trends voters are confronting at the polls on Tuesday. In a presidential election of enormous stakes, filmmakers have rushed to finish their films before Election Day, to try to inform, sway and entertain the electorate.

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A sense of urgency, in particular, drives many of the films which have streamed, aired on TV and played in theaters in the weeks ahead of Nov. 2. The woeful state of movie theaters due to the pandemic hasnā€™t enabled a box-office breakout like Michael Mooreā€™s 2004 election-year documentary ā€œFahrenheit 9/11,ā€ but the sheer deluge of docs this year has put politics at the top of countless streaming-service queues.

Hereā€™s a rundown of highlights from an election-year documentary landside.

ā€” ā€œAll In: The Fight for Democracyā€: Liz Garbus and Lisa CortĆ©sā€™ film details the contested election of Georgiaā€™s governor in 2018, with potentially relevant lessons about voter suppression for 2020. Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate and a producer of ā€œAll In,ā€ relates her experience in her razor-thin loss to Brian Kemp, a Republican, who as Georgiaā€™s secretary of state had a pivotal role overseeing the election. (Kemp, who won by 50,000 votes, put more than 53,000 voter registrations, most of them from minorities, on hold ahead of voting.) ā€œAll Inā€ uses Abrams as an entry point for a larger history of disenfranchisement in America. (On Amazon Prime)

ā€” ā€œAgents of Chaosā€: Alex Gibneyā€™s two-part HBO documentary returns to the 2016 election of Donald Trump to investigate claims of Russian interference. Gibney struggles to come to firm conclusions on Trumpā€™s alleged collusion or how much of an effect Russian trolls had. But he makes a powerful argument that Russianā€™s meddling in American democracy is undeniable and remains cause for alarm. The prolific Gibney also this month released ā€œTotally Under Controlā€ (Hulu), a highly critical portrait of the White Houseā€™s management of the pandemic.

ā€” ā€œ537 Votesā€: Like several of this fallā€™s documentaries, the lesson of Billy Corbenā€™s ā€œ537 Votesā€ is clear: Vote. The ā€œCocaine Cowboysā€ filmmakerā€™s HBO movie returns to Florida 2000 to chronicle the divergent paths of strategy employed by high-minded, outfoxed Democrats and more rough-and-tumble, win-at-all-costs Republicans in the historic recount between George W. Bush and Al Gore. The film, produced by Adam McKay, throbs with a Miami beat, outlining the crucial context of the EliĆ”n GonzĆ”lez saga on the all-important Cuban-American vote in Florida. ā€œ537 Votesā€ is a reminder of how much your vote can matter, and how politized counting it can get.

ā€” ā€œKill Chain: The Cyber War on Americaā€™s Electionsā€: Simon Ardizzone, Russell Michaels and Sarah Tealeā€™s documentary may lead all others in its ability to keep you up at night. The HBO film, relying on cyber-security experts and experienced hackers, details how hackable U.S. voting technology really is. One interviewed hacker describes how he broke into Alaskaā€™s 2016 election system just to see if he could. Another, an election-security expert named Harri Hursti, tracks down supposedly unbreachable voting machines to tinker with their vulnerabilities. He finds a widely used model on eBay, on sale for about $80 each.

ā€” ā€œSlay the Dragonā€: In a voting landscape where district maps take strange, misshapen forms, ā€œSlay the Dragonā€ is expert at reading between the lines. Barak Goodman and Chris Durranceā€™s film is about gerrymandering, the partisan drawing up of districts to make more elections virtually uncontested. ā€œSlay the Dragon,ā€ streaming on Hulu, clearly explains the often-complicated manipulations of districts. But it does more than that, tracing how redrawn electoral maps have affected things as disparate as the Flint Water crisis and the election of Trump. Most of all, it shows how gerrymandering has helped fuel our heated politics, removing incentive for compromise.

ā€” ā€œThe Fightā€: The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed 20 lawsuits this year over voting by mail and more than 400 legal actions against the Trump administration, figures to play a role in any legal challenges in a disputed tally. In ā€œThe Fight,ā€ streaming on Hulu, documents the ACLU in its battles against the Trump administration, giving an intimate look at the attorneys on the front lines in cases including LGBTQ rights, immigrant rights and reproductive rights. Elyse Steinberg, Josh Kriegman and Eli Despress, the makers of the excruciatingly entertaining Anthony Weiner doc ā€œWeiner,ā€ captures a legal bulwark in motion, trailing both how cases are built and how their crusading lawyers keep up with the frantic pace.

ā€” ā€œNot Done: Women Remaking Americaā€: Sara Wolitzkyā€™s documentary, which premiered Tuesday on PBS, looks back on the last few years of the womenā€™s movement, starting with the Womenā€™s March the day after the inauguration of Trump -- still the largest demonstration in American history. With interviews including Gloria Steinem, #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, Shonda Rhimes and Timeā€™s Up co-founder Tina Tchen, ā€œNot Doneā€ surveys four turbulent years in an expansive womenā€™s movement that kicked off #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, and is sure to dramatically affect the election.

ā€” ā€œBoys Stateā€: How are younger generations processing the politics theyā€™ve been raised in? Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaineā€™s wildly entertaining documentary, a prize-winner at Sundance now streaming on Apple TV+, answers that question by filming the Boys State camp in Texas, where some 1,100 17- and 18-year-old boys annually gather to create a mock government with two parties, established platforms and fast-moving campaigns. Itā€™s a microcosm of American politics, where some teenagers have gleaned dirty tricks from todayā€™s Washington and others believe idealistically in change.

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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP


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