Magnolia Pictures, Passion Pictures, Motto Pictures & HBO Documentary Films

Presents

A MAGNOLIA PICTURES RELEASE

THE FINAL YEAR

A film by Greg Barker

89 minutes

Featuring John Kerry, Ben Rhodes, Samantha Power & Barack Obama

Official Selection

2017 Toronto International Film Festival – World Premiere

2017 DOC NYC – Opening Night

2017 BFI London Film Festival

FINAL PRESS NOTES

Distributor Contact:	Press Contact NY/Nat’l:	Press Contact LA/Nat’l:
Matt Cowal	Ryan Werner	Rene Ridinger
Arianne Ayers	Emilie Spiegel	Smith & Company
Magnolia Pictures	Cinetic Marketing	rridinger@smithandcompany.com
(212) 924-6701 office	ryan@cineticmedia.com	(213) 232-1351 office
publicity@magpictures.com	emilie@cineticmedia.com

SYNOPSIS

THE FINAL YEAR gives a look at the inner workings of the Obama administration as they prepare to establish a legacy when leaving power after eight years. The film revolves around Obama's foreign policy team: Secretary of State John Kerry, UN Ambassador Samantha Power, Deputy National Security Adviser and presidential confidant Ben Rhodes, as well as National Security Adviser Susan Rice and President Obama himself. Over the course of 2016, they travel the world attempting to solidify and "lock-in" policies that they believe will define their legacy, promote diplomacy over large-scale military action, and fundamentally alter how the US government confronts questions of war and peace, as they prepare to hand over the machinery of American power to a new administration.

THE PRODUCTION

Filming began in late 2015 and wrapped at 3am on the morning of January 20th, hours before the inauguration.

Director Greg Barker and his documentary team filmed extensively throughout the year at the White House and State Department in Washington DC, the United Nations in New York City, and in 21 countries, following US officials on their international travel. The film was shot on-the-fly, with minimal equipment, no lights, and the smallest possible crew at all times, which gave the team flexibility to be nimble and capture spontaneous moments. Simultaneously, the editing team in LA reviewed and assembled nearly 1,000 hours of footage.

Countries filmed in:

Austria, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Cuba, Denmark, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Greenland, Japan, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Nigeria, Peru, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA, Vietnam.

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

At 4am on the morning of Donald Trump’s inauguration, my team and I filmed UN Ambassador Samantha Power as she slowly removed her 7 year-old son’s artwork from the walls of her office overlooking 1st Avenue. She filled a bankers box with all the drawings, and then carried it down into a waiting SUV for what would be her last official ride as US Ambassador to the United Nations.

Earlier that day I filmed with Secretary John Kerry as he left the State Department for the final time, and with speechwriter and presidential confidant Ben Rhodes in the White House as he packed his own belongings, wistfully coming across his handwritten notes from a 2009 sit-down with Obama in the Oval Office to talk through what the President wanted to say in his upcoming speech in Cairo.

This was the end of an era - everyone felt it - and, for me personally, the end of an epic 15-month film shoot that took me on a once-in-a-career journey inside the workings of our foreign policy machinery. As Samantha Power drove away into the night, and I called a wrap on the entire production, I knew I had a unique opportunity to make a truly revealing film about the human dynamics and emotions at play inside the normally opaque world of US diplomacy.

This film is my sixth collaboration with my longtime producers John Battsek and Julie Goldman, and it was by far the most challenging — in terms of access, in terms of storytelling, and in terms of the sheer logistics involved when filming inside what’s known as “the POTUS bubble,” especially overseas. Editorially, John, Julie and I always recognized that this film will be controversial — the very nature of its subject matter almost guarantees that - but my intention all along has been to make a film that goes beyond the politics of the moment, and helps foster a wider discussion about how America can and should relate to the wider world.

We started with a simple idea. Was it possible, I wondered, to make a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the last year of a presidency, in the spirit of the classic campaign film The War Room, only in reverse? Senior officials inside the US national security apparatus are not used to having a documentary film crew hang around for months on end. We all took a leap of faith and began filming, slowly at first to build trust and figure out the broad parameters of how and when we could be present with cameras.

It was only very late in the process that I realized what the film wanted to become. This is a story about a small group of people who came together nearly a decade ago, rallying behind a man and his cause. They set out to change the world, and against all expectations, found themselves in a position to affect that change. The believed they could redefine American foreign policy, promote diplomacy over large-scale military action, and alter how we as a nation think about questions of war and peace. They had their share of victories — the Iran deal, climate change, Cuba - and despite their own internal divisions over one of the toughest foreign policy questions of our age (Syria), at the outset of 2016 they believed they had largely succeeded, and that their legacy would define US foreign policy for decades to come.

In retrospect, what our cameras captured was more than just high-ranking government officials at work, as fascinating and informative as that may be. We captured a worldview, an attitude, an approach to international affairs that — we now know — was fleeting, unique to a particular moment.

As anyone who has worked in government knows, behind the access, the crises of the moment, and the elusive but seductive sense of power, there is simply an enormous amount of hard, usually thankless work. Witnessing that up close, and seeing how dedicated our public servants are, was truly humbling and inspiring — honestly the greatest privilege of my professional life.

PRODUCTION TIMELINE

Production for THE FINAL YEAR began in late 2015 and continued to the early hours of the morning on January 20, 2017, the day of Trump's inauguration. Director Greg Barker and his team filmed for 90 days in 21 countries. Highlights included -

Sept. 2015.	Filming begins, Presidential visit to the United Nations General Assembly.

Jan. 13-17, 2016.	Vienna, Austria. Secretary of State John Kerry, on Implementation Day for

the Iran nuclear agreement.

Apr 17-24, 2016.	UN Ambassador Samantha Power visits Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria.

May 15-18, 2016.	Secretary of State John Kerry attends Syrian peace negotiations in Vienna.

May 19-25, 2016.	Presidential trip to Vietnam.

May 26-28, 2016.	Presidential trip to Hiroshima, POTUS speech at Peace Memorial

Jun 15-18, 2016.	John Kerry visits Greenland to study climate change.

Jul 14-Jul 22, 2016.	Ben Rhodes travels to Laos in advance of Presidential visit.

Sept 3-6, 2016.	Barack Obama is the first US president to visit Laos.

Sept 18-24, 2016.	United Nations General Assembly meetings, attended by President Obama,

John Kerry, Samantha Power and Ben Rhodes.

Nov 08, 2016.	Election night.

Nov 13-16, 2016.	POTUS visits Athens as part of his final overseas trip.

Jan 19th and 20th.	John Kerry, Ben Rhodes and Samantha Power pack up and leave their

offices. Filming wraps at 4am the morning of January 20th, hours before the inauguration.

PARTICIPANTS

JOHN KERRY, Secretary of State

John Kerry served as Secretary of State from February 2013 until the end of the Obama administration. He previously was a Senator from Massachusetts and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Kerry first met Barack Obama in 2004, during Kerry’s own presidential campaign, and chose Obama as the keynote speaker for his nominating convention.

Kerry served in Vietnam as a Naval Officer. Following his military service, Kerry became a prominent anti-war activist testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.

SAMANTHA POWER, US Ambassador to the United Nations

Samantha Power served as US Ambassador to the United Nations from February 2013 until January 2017. During President Obama’s first term, she worked in the White House as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights at the National Security Council.

Samantha Power emigrated from Ireland at age 9, and became a US citizen in 1993. After college, she was a journalist in Bosnia during wartime, and later wrote A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, which won the Pulitzer Prize.

Power met then-Senator Barack Obama in 2005, and worked on his first presidential campaign as a foreign policy advisor.

BEN RHODES, Deputy National Security Advisor

Ben Rhodes served in the White House as Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications from 2009 until January 2017. Rhodes joined the Obama presidential campaign in 2007, and later became one of the president’s closest aides.

Rhodes was a creative writing student at NYU when he witnessed the 9/11 attacks. He moved to Washington and was hired by former Congressman Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired both the Iraq Study Group and the 9/11 Commission. Rhodes helped draft the 9/11 Commission’s final report, which became a best-seller.

SUSAN RICE, National Security Advisor

Susan Rice served as National Security Advisor from 2013 until January 2017. During President Obama’s first term, she was Ambassador to the United Nations.

In 2004, Rice was a foreign policy adviser to John Kerry during his presidential campaign, when Kerry chose Barack Obama as the keynote speaker at his convention. In 2007, Rice was one of the first prominent foreign policy advisors to join Obama’s own presidential bid.

Rice had previously been a Senior Director at the National Security Council during President Bill Clinton’s first term, and was Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during Clinton’s second term.

FILMMAKERS

GREG BARKER, Director/Producer

Greg Barker looks for strong personal narratives that illuminate the complexities and moral ambiguities of global politics and war. For THE FINAL YEAR Barker secured unprecedented access to the White House and State Department, capturing the emotions and human dynamics behind American diplomacy at its highest levels.

With his longstanding producing partners John Battsek and Julie Goldman, Barker’s films include HBO’s Manhunt, about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, (Prime Time Emmy®), Homegrown: The Counter-Terror Dilemma, Sergio (Sundance editing award), and Koran by Heart. Barker previously worked as a journalist, making numerous films for PBS/Frontline, including the acclaimed Ghosts of Rwanda.

He grew up in California, lived in DC and London for a long time, and now lives in Santa Monica with his British wife and family. He has a master’s in International Relations from the LSE, and is a Future of War Fellow at the New America Foundation.

JULIE GOLDMAN, Producer

Julie Goldman founded Motto Pictures in 2009. She is an Oscar nominated, Emmy Award and Peabody Award winning producer and executive producer of documentary feature films. Julie is producer of Life, Animated and executive producer of Weiner, both of which premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. Life, Animated won the U.S. Documentary Directing Award, was released by The Orchard and nominated for the 2017 Academy Award. Weiner won the U.S. Documentary Grand Jury Prize, was released by IFC Films & Showtime and shortlisted for the 2017 Academy Award. In 2016 Julie also produced and executive produced features including: The Music of Strangers, Indian Point, Solitary, Enlighten Us, Southwest of Salem and Chicken People. Previously, she executive produced Best of Enemies and several Emmy-nominated films: 3½ Minutes, The Kill Team, Art and Craft and 1971. Julie produced Gideon’s Army, Manhunt, the Oscar shortlisted God Loves Uganda, The Great Invisible, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry and Buck, which was Oscar shortlisted and one of 2011’s top five grossing documentaries. Julie consulted on the Academy Award-winning The Cove and produced the Oscar shortlisted Sergio. Julie is on the Board of the Producers Guild of America (PGA) and a member of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

JOHN BATTSEK, Producer / MD Passion Pictures

John Battsek runs Passion Pictures, a double Academy Award winning (four times Academy Award nominated) independent production company and one of the most successful and prolific producers of feature documentary films in the international marketplace.

In 1999, Battsek conceived and produced Academy Award-winning ONE DAY IN SEPTEMBER and he has since been responsible for over thirty high profile feature documentaries.

These include: Academy Award nominated RESTREPO; Academy shortlisted THE TILLMAN STORY (Winner Best Historical Doc Emmy 2012); Prime Time Emmy winning MANHUNT; BAFTA Outstanding Debut Winner THE IMPOSTER, and Academy Award and BAFTA winning SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN.

In 2016 Battsek produced Peabody-winning and 2016 BAFTA nominated LISTEN TO ME MARLON (Shortlisted: Academy Award 2016, Winner: IDA Creative Recognition for Best Writing 2015, Nominated: Primetime Emmy, Exceptional Merit in nonfiction Filmmaking 2016), and the 2016 Academy Award Nominated WINTER ON FIRE (Nominated: Primetime Emmy, Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking)

More recently, Battsek produced Netflix Original three-part docu-series titled FIVE CAME BACK, the story of five legendary Hollywood filmmakers who enlisted in the armed forces to document WWII and shows how Hollywood impacted the war, and vice versa - as told by five acclaimed contemporary directors: Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Lawrence Kasdan, Francis Ford Coppola and Paul Greengrass. Also in 2017, HILLSBOROUGH – the definitive account of Britain’s worst sporting disaster - was awarded a BAFTA for Best single Documentary.

Two new films premiered earlier this month at TIFF 207; ERIC CLAPTON: LIFE IN 12 BARS – an intimate, revealing musical odyssey on the life and career of the guitar virtuoso - and THE FINAL YEAR, which gives an unprecedented look at the shaping of US foreign policy by following key members of outgoing US President Barack Obama’s administration.

Battsek is currently in production and post-production on a wide a variety of feature documentaries, including films about John Belushi, Vivienne Westwood, Judy Garland, Oliver Sacks and Studio 54.

Battsek has been nominated three times for a PGA Award and was the recipient of 2013 prestigious Grierson Trustees Award for Outstanding Contribution to Documentary.

CREDITS

Directed By

Greg Barker

Produced By

Julie Goldman

John Battsek

Greg Barker

Co-Producers

Diane Becker

Christopher Buchanan

Edited By

Joshua Altman

Langdon Page

Main Titles & Visual Graphics

Blue Spill

Associate Producers

Ann Rogers

Tyler Gurd

Alice Kate Bristow

Co-Executive Producers

Kerstin Emhoff

Andrew Ruhemann

Cinematography By

Erich Roland

Martina Radwan

Original Music By

Philip Sheppard

For Motto Pictures

Production Executives

Christopher Clements

Carolyn Hepburn

Associate Producer

Sean Lyness

--

Production Sound Mixer

Brent Calkin

---

Additional Photography By

Frank-Peter Lehmann

Tom Bergmann

Jake Swantko

Nelson Hume

Christopher Buchanan

Greg Barker

---

Additional Production Sound

Rodrigo Salvatierra

Theresa Radka

Joe Maggio

Oliver Lumpe

John Zecca

Mark Roy

Paul Rusnak

Paul Cote

Mark Maloof

Taylor Roy

---

Additional Editing

Robin Schwartz

---

Production Assistants

Philip Vickery

Sinthuka Vivekananthan

Sam Bender

Manuel Wilhelm

Shei'Tia Benson

Drew Warren

Sammi Begelman

Jamhal Poynter

---

Assistant Editor

Tyler Gurd

---

Additional Archive Research

Erikka Yancy

Assia Boundaoui

---

Interpreter

Jose Luis Fonseca

---

Production Executives for Passion Pictures

George Chignell

Nicole Stott

---

Produced in Association with

Prettybird Pictures

---

For Blue Spill

Design Director

Allison Brownmoore

Flame Artist

Anthony Brownmoore

Designers

Joe Nowacki

Oliver Weinfeld

Paint Artists

Isabelle Howlett

Daniel Nees

Peter Jurca

---

Post-Production Color Services by

A52

Colorist

Paul Yacono

Assistant Colorists

Gabe Sanchez

Chris Riley

Producer

Jenny Bright

Executive Producers

Kim Christensen

Patrick Nugent

Managing Directors

Linda Carlson

Jennifer Sofio Hall

Flame Artists

Chris Riley

Enid Dalkof

Kevin Stokes

---

Post-Production Sound Services by

Skywalker Sound

a Lucasfilm Ltd. Company

Marin County, California

Supervising Sound Editor

Christopher Barnett

Sound Designer

Al Nelson

Re-Recording Mixer

Pete Horner

Sound Effects Editors

Shaun Farley

Mac Smith

Assistant Re-Recording Mixer

Anthony Villaflor

Engineering Services

Scott Levine

Digital Editorial Support

Ivan Piesh

Audio/Video Transfer

Marco Alicea

Post Production Sound Accountant

Jessica Engel

Post Production Finance Manager

Mike Peters

Client Services

Eva Porter

Scheduling

Carrie Perry

Skywalker Sound Executive Staff

General Manager

Josh Lowden

Head of Production

Jon Null

Head of Engineering

Steve Morris

---

Post Production Services Provided by

Different By Design

Online Editor

Matt Radecki

---

English Session Orchestra Recorded at Abbey Road Studios

Sound Engineer

Andrew Dudman

---

Additional Archive Materials

National Archives and Records Administration

NBCUniversal Archives

WPA Film Library

United Nations

"The Times They Are A-Changin'"

Performed by The Brothers & Sisters

Written by Bob Dylan

Published by Special Rider Music

Courtesy of Epic Records

By Arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

---

Production Accountant

Protea Group

Production Legal Services

Russell Smith

Smith Dehn LLP

Linda Lichter

Lichter, Grossman, Nichols, Adler & Feldman, Inc.

---

Insurance Provided By

Clements Worldwide

Arthur J Gallagher & Co.

---

The Producers Wish To Thank

Rumana Ahmed

Liz Allen

Matt Baca

Desiree Barnes

Graham Brookie

Ali Brown

Kurtis Cooper

Marissa Ericson

Harriet Fraser

Timothy Gowa

Marie Harf

Glen Johnson

John Kirby

Aviva Klein

Erin Mulhall

Edward Price

Jeff Rosen

Mike Rosen

Nikolaus Steinberg

Mark Stroh

Terry Szuplat

Ashley Tate-Gilmore

Melissa Turley

Rebecca Wexler

Frank Wuliger

Ashley Yehl

And the dozens of dedicated United States diplomats, foreign service officers and career civil servants posted around the world who helped make this film possible.

1

16

49 west 27th street 7th floor new york, ny 10001

tel 212 924 6701 fax 212 924 6742

www.magpictures.com

Danielle

2017-12-12

Tess Ornstein