Variety: Partisan Documentaries aim for political pull

… The message of “The Hope and the Change” is disappointment in Obama, and that will be out there whether viewers watch the film or merely see its ads. The film, its marketing and its TV deal is “exactly the reason I went to the Supreme Court,” Bossie said. He’s referring to that fact that before the high court’s landmark Citizens United decision, he might not have been able to put out advertise for it, perhaps just as important in messaging as the film itself. The Federal Election Commission in 2004 deemed the promotion and broadcast of Citizen’s United’s “Celsius 41.11” as electioneering communication too close to the election and prohibited under campaign finance reform laws. So in 2008 Bossie made “Hillary, the Movie” and intentionally challenged those laws, arguing that he should be able to advertise his movie just as Moore would be able to, and the result was the high court’s landmark 2010 ruling.

This cycle Bossie finds himself up against not just other documentaries but what is expected to be an avalanche of ads from campaigns and outside groups, the latter of which have fewer restrictions after the Supreme Court’s ruling. Nevertheless, he thinks “The Hope and the Change” can cut through the clutter and be “able to break through a bit.”

“You have all these cable platforms. You certainly have a lot of television ad competition,” Bossie said of the coming months. “But our ads are for a movie. People may tune out when they hear ‘My name is Barack Obama and I approve this message,’ or ‘I am Mitt Romney and I approve this message.'”

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