War Game Film Screening and Panel Discussion

We hope you can join us for a special screening of the documentary film “War Game,” followed by a panel discussion moderated by John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, AZ, about the film and what it implies about the possible futures of democracy in America.

Wednesday, Oct 30, 2024
6:15 p.m.
The First Amendment Forum (second floor)
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
555 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85004

About the film:
War Game is a documentary that follows a bipartisan group of US defense, intelligence and elected policymakers spanning five presidential administrations as they participate in an unscripted role-play exercise. Portraying a fictional President of the United States and his advisors, they confront a political coup backed by rogue members of the US military in the wake of a contested 2024 presidential election. The simulation’s outcome hinges on several inflection points, from the government’s capacity to counter disinformation to the potential invocation of the Insurrection Act. While a documentary, the film builds tension like a fictional thriller. But the stakes are real.

Why we’re screening it
On September 18, 1787, the last day of the Constitutional Convention, when asked what the convention had produced, Benjamin Franklin famously said: “A republic, if you can keep it.” War Game raises both urgent and enduring questions about what it takes from leaders — and citizens — to maintain a healthy republic. 

About the panel discussion
After the screening, John Giles, the mayor of Mesa, Arizona, will moderate a panel discussion featuring Tony Gerber, the film’s director; Elizabeth Neumann, a national security expert who served in the Department of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2020; Lt. General (Ret.) Jeffrey S. Buchanan, who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and was asked by the US House of Representatives in 2021 to analyze the security failures of the US Capitol Police; and Andy Gordon, a former Counselor at the Department of Homeland Security who now teaches national security law at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. We expect a lively, civil conversation about the relative importance of law and norms, the uneasy relationship between information and truth, and even the potential uses of both persuasion and force.