How This Indie Filmmaker Made the Year’s Biggest Political Documentary

A Q&A with Narratively Contributor Rachel Lears, director of the Netflix documentary "Knock Down The House."

If you’re a huge politico, you’ve surely heard of the new Netflix documentary Knock Down The House. The documentary, which was created by Rachel Lears and Robin Blotnick, follows four women – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush, and Paula Jean Swearengin  – as they run for Congress in 2018.

You may remember first meeting these four women last year on Narratively, when we worked with Rachel and Robin to publish four excerpts from their film-in-progress. Since then, Ocasio-Cortez pulled off a shocking upset to become one of the country’s biggest political stars; Knock Down The House premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; and the film was released on Netflix on May 1. It currently has a 100-percent critics approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Narratively chatted with director Rachel Lears about the process of making Knock Down The House and what’s next for her.