A deadly pandemic, a vanishing American Dream, and violence against those who stand up for justice. How did we get here?

The new political documentary “Stars and Strife”directed by David Smick and Executive Produced by Barry Levinson, released a new trailer ahead of the release on STARZ platforms on September 21, 2020. The film is available now on Digital/VOD.

Stars and Strife features interviews with Hawk Newsome, President of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York; Rahm Emanuel, Former White House Chief of Staff and Mayor of Chicago; Derek Black, the Godson of Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke who has publicly condemned white nationalism; The late Alice Rivlin, the founder of the Congressional Budget Office; Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, the first woman ever to represent Pennsylvania’s 6th District in the U.S. Congress and more

A documentary about how an epidemic of hatred has left America helpless in the face of crisis. A common-sense majority is exhausted and eager for solutions. But they’re up against a hate industry devoted to contempt and division. Our politics value opponents’ demise over dialogue — and our elected officials put party over country.

The cast includes Alan Greenspan, Alice Rivlin (1931-2019), Amy Chua, Arthur Brooks, Chrissy Houlahan, David Ignatius, Derek Black, Francis Fukuyama, Hawk Newsome, James A. Baker III, Jeffrey Rosen, Katherine Gehl, Ken Langone, Larry Hogan, Lawrence H. Summers, Leon Panetta, Liza Gold, Niall Ferguson, Rabbi Yisrael Goldstein, Rahm Emanuel, Roger Porter, Roy Baumeister, Shelby Coffey, Stan Druckenmiller. Together, they explore why, to meet the challenges of our time and live up to the promises of our founding, we need to correct course.

When we come together, Americans can build a main street economy that expands opportunity and a practical politics that brings results. Most of all, we can rediscover empathy – the lost heart of our country.

Filmmakers

David Smick (Writer/Director) – David Smick has worked with presidents, senators, and Federal Reserve chairs as a policy strategist for forty years. His global advisory firm, Johnson Smick International, advises some of the world’s top money managers. He is a New York Times bestselling author and founder and publisher of The International Economy, a magazine. Smick began his career on Capitol Hill, and at 27 he became chief of staff for a member of the Congressional leadership.

Barry Levinson (Executive Producer) – Barry Levinson is an Academy Award©-winning director, screenwriter, and producer who was awarded the 1988 Best Director Oscar for the multiple Academy Award©-winning RAIN MAN, starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. In 1991 BUGSY, directed and produced by Levinson, was nominated for ten Academy Awards® including Best Picture and Best Director. As a screenwriter, Levinson has received three Oscar nominations for AND JUSTICE FOR ALL,
DINER, and AVALON.

In The Film

Alan Greenspan served five terms as Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. His success in facilitating what was then the longest official economic expansion in U.S. history earned him the sobriquet “The Maestro.”

Alice Rivlin (1931-2019) was the founding Director of the Congressional Budget Office. She went on to serve as Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton and Vice Chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve

Amy Chua is a Professor at Yale Law School. She is the author of three New York Times bestselling books, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability (2003), Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (2011), and The Triple Package (2013), coauthored with her husband, Jed Rubenfeld. In 2011, Chua was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, and one of Foreign Policy’s Global Thinkers of 2011.

Arthur Brooks is a Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Fellow at the Harvard Business School. He formerly served for ten years as President of the Washington, D.C.-based American Enterprise Institute, one of the world’s leading think tanks.

Chrissy Houlahan is an Air Force veteran, engineer, entrepreneur, and educator, is the first woman ever to represent Pennsylvania’s 6th District in the U.S. Congress.

David Ignatius is a columnist for the Washington Post. He previously held positions at the Post as foreign editor and assistant managing editor for business news. As the Post’s foreign editor, Ignatius supervised the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He is also the author of eight spy novels

Derek Black grew up as the godson of Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke and son of the founder of Stormfront, the first online white power community. As a teenager, Black ran a radio show supporting his family’s ideology and launched a white nationalist website for children. He has since publicly condemned white nationalism in a 2013 letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center. He is currently a history doctoral student at the University of Chicago.

Francis Fukuyama is a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. Fukuyama is the author of many books, notably The End of History and the Last Man (1992), which has been widely discussed and cited.

Hawk Newsome is an activist at the forefront of the New Civil Rights Movement, and is President of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York. Hawk is married and has a 14-year-old autistic son and newborn daughter.

James A. Baker III served as White House Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan and Secretary of State and White House Chief of Staff under President George H.W. Bush.

Jeffrey Rosen has been called “the nation’s most widely read and influential legal commentator.” Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center and a professor at the George Washington University Law School.

Katherine Gehl is an entrepreneur, policy activist, and political reformer. She is co-author, with Michael E. Porter, of the study Why Competition in the Politics Industry Is Failing America, published by Harvard Business School in 2017.

Ken Langone is an American billionaire businessman, investor, and philanthropist, best known for organizing financing for the founders of The Home Depot, a national chain with over 400,000 employees. He chairs the Board of Trustees at the NYU School of Medicine.

Larry Hogan was re-elected to his second term as Governor of Maryland in 2018, becoming only the second Republican governor to be re-elected in the 242-year history of the state.

Lawrence H. Summers served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Clinton and the Director of the National Economic Council under President Obama. Summers is the only Treasury Secretary in the last half century to have left office with the national budget in surplus.

Leon Panetta served as Secretary of Defense and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Obama, and as White House Chief of Staff and Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton.

Liza Gold is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University. She is editor of the book Gun Violence and Mental Illness (2016).

Niall Ferguson is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a Senior Faculty Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. Ferguson is the author of fifteen books. His PBS series The Ascent of Money won an international Emmy.

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein founded Chabad of Poway, an Orthodox synagogue and community center in Poway, California, in 1986. On April 27, 2019, a gunman entered the synagogue building on the last day of Passover and opened fire in the foyer, killing one and wounding three, including Goldstein.

Rahm Emanuel first came to Washington as a senior adviser to President Clinton. In 2002, Emanuel was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives for Illinois’ 5th district, and in 2007 became Chair of the House Democratic Caucus. He was White House Chief of Staff under President Obama, and most recently served two terms as Mayor of Chicago.

Roger Porter is a Professor of Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. Porter previously served as Assistant to the President for Economic and Domestic Policy under President George H.W. Bush, and Director of the White House Office of Policy Development under President
Reagan.

Roy Baumeister is currently a Professor at the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland in Australia. Baumeister has published over five hundred scientific articles and more than thirty books. In 2013, he received the highest award given by the Association for Psychological Science, the William James Fellow award.

Shelby Coffey was Editor and Executive Vice President of the Los Angeles Times from 1989 to 1997. He was previously a media executive at CNN, ABC News, and the Washington Post.

Stan Druckenmiller is the former Chairman and President of Duquesne Capital and is currently CEO of Duquesne Family Office. From 1988 to 2000, he was lead portfolio manager of investor George Soros’ Quantum Fund. Druckenmiller’s family foundation was the founding financial sponsor of Harlem Children’s Zone.