So says Leslie Felperin of the Hollywood Reporter about Knock Down the House, ADFS’s December offering. And she wasn’t alone: Knock won both the 2019 Sundance Audience Award and the Critics’ Choice Documentary Award, along with many other honors.

When tragedy struck her family in the midst of the financial crisis, Bronx-born Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had to work double shifts in a restaurant to save her home from foreclosure. Amy Vilela in Nevada, after losing a loved one to a preventable medical condition, didn’t know what to do with the anger she felt about America’s broken health care system. Cori Bush of Missouri was drawn into the streets when the police shooting of an unarmed black man brought protests and tanks into her neighborhood. In West Virginia, Paula Jean Swearegin was fed up with watching her friends and family suffer and die from the environmental effects of the coal industry.

At a moment of historic volatility in American politics, these four women decide to fight back, setting themselves on a journey that will change their lives and their country forever. Without political experience or corporate money, these women, and a vast army of political volunteers, build a movement of insurgent candidates challenging powerful Congressional incumbents. Their efforts result in a legendary upset.

NB: Oakland’s screening will be followed by a conversation with Oakland City Council Member Nikki Fortunato-Bas, sho will discuss her nontraditional path from political activism to elective politics.