The Reagan Show: A public relations battle between Soviet and American

Friday evening the New Hampshire Film Festival had the pleasure of screening The Reagan Show, directed by Sierra Pettengil and Pacho Velez, produced by Sierra Pettengill, Dan Cogan, Amy Entelis, Houston King, Regina K. Scully, Jenny Raskin and Daniel Garber and written by Pacho Velez, Francisco Bello and Josh Alexander.

This documentary follows President Reagan through his entire presidency and how he presents himself in the public eye. The footage is all archival and shows many raw moments of president Reagan that many people have not seen before. Mostly the film centers around President Reagan’s relationship with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and their ongoing battle of public relations.

At the end of the film, a Q&A session was held by one of the film’s representatives.  An audience member asked how long the process of looking over all of the footage and compiling it into the actual film, to which a film representative replied, “about three and a half years to compile all of the footage and complete the film.”

Another question was asked about why they chose to not feature the shooting of president Reagan. The representative replied, “You have to pick a particular narrative. We chose one that was mainly about his relation with Gorbachev.”

Many memorable quotes from Reagan were put into the film, but the one that was striking to the audience the most was Reagan’s “Make American Great Again” slogan that was “too good to pass up”.

By Josh King