JUSTICE MATTERS

Homegrown

MICHAEL PREMO
USA, 2024
109 minutes, Color
Official website

In Person: Director Michael Premo and Producer Rachel Falcone

In the months leading up to the 2020 election, well before January 6, 2021, filmmaker Michael Premo had the foresight and courage to embed with the Proud Boys for this intimate exploration of the far-right pro-Trump movement through three of its acolytes. Premo lets his subjects speak for themselves, and he does not judge. We meet a thoughtful Hispanic vet interested in the Proud Boys' possible links with Black Lives Matter concerns, a father and insurrectionist-to-be building a nursery and a gun room, and an organizer searching for "Antifa" and "communists" he hasn't yet found. "Proud of ya, boy" is the Proud Boy greeting, and it's a rather heartbreaking tell. In these portraits you might see left-behind Americans excited to now belong or dangerous streetfighters on a mission; earnest "western chauvinists," or purveyors of disinformation. Or, perhaps, all of the above.—Various sources