Kathryn Bigelow was interested in the U.S. nuclear stockpile: Who was guarding it? What would happen if a missile strike was imminent? And who would be making the decisions about what to do?
Her new film “A House of Dynamite” takes audiences into those guarded rooms as U.S. government officials and military leaders attempt to manage a missile strike from an unknown aggressor that is 20 minutes from impact. It has its world premiere on Tuesday evening at the Venice Film Festival.
“This is a global issue,” Bigelow said before the premiere. “We are really living in a house of dynamite. My interest was to really get that information out there.”
Bigelow worked alongside screenwriter and the former president of NBC News, Noah Oppenheim, to craft an authentic portrait of what might transpire in those 20 minutes.
“One of the many things that makes Kathryn such an extraordinary filmmaker is her commitment to authenticity,” Oppenheim said. “From the very beginning her mandate was, ‘lets find out how this would really work, let’s take people into these rooms where these decisions would be made and show how it would actually unfold.”
It helped that Oppenheim had covered the subject for decades as a journalist, and that he had his own arsenal of contacts who could help inform the story, including former Pentagon, White House and CIA officials.
