ABSTRACT
Competition dramas have a wonderful inbuilt story structure and this makes it a common and popular documentary genre. Although Knock Down the House is more unusual in structure as the characters the people follow are all running to unseat other politicians rather than competing against each other, it still follows that wonderful story arch. In the last few years two competition documentary films, Knock Down the House and Boys State, secured some of the biggest distribution deals ever seen for a documentary at Sundance. Knock Down the House is an incredibly effective film about the political process of campaigning. The central concept of the film was always going to be about outsiders challenging established political machines. Working hard to activate people who have felt left out of the political process, young people who've never felt engaged before. Lears talks about there being real hope in the fact these women put so much effort into trying.
