In Bucks County, the suburban collar county that’s been closely contested in each current presidential election, a sequence of high-profile tradition wars within the post-COVID years has included efforts to take away queer-themed books from college curriculum for being “sexually specific,” a push to ban the show of the Delight flag in lecture rooms, contentious Faculty Board elections, and an much more tense run-up to the 2024 presidential race.
Beginning in 2002, for greater than three years, a bunch of filmmakers chronicled a lot of it, largely in Doylestown and the Central Bucks Faculty District, and among the Pennridge Faculty District. On the coronary heart of the story are two teenage ladies who’ve maintained their shut friendship, at the same time as their mother and father took reverse political sides.
The result’s a five-part documentary sequence known as Bucks County, USA. Its first two elements debuted on the Sundance Movie Pageant in January 2025, when the sequence was removed from full; even these first two episodes have been revised.
The sequence consists of footage from contentious public conferences, talking-head interviews with a variety of contributors — from college board members to households with queer youngsters, who all really feel they’ve been adversely affected by the district’s coverage choices. It additionally consists of by which residents on reverse political sides meet to debate their variations.
Bucks County, USA, options loads of native Bucks County shade; from a go to to an annual re-enactment of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware to Doylestown’s Oscar Hammerstein Museum, which, through the interval of filming, was the topic of a fundraising marketing campaign. We hear “You’ve Bought to Be Fastidiously Taught,” a Hammerstein composition from the musical South Pacific, in regards to the scourge of racial prejudice.
Filmmaker Robert Could, who co-directed the primary episode and directed the opposite 4, is a Pennsylvania native who now lives within the Poconos. The opposite co-director of the primary episode is filmmaker Barry Levinson, whose work consists of the perfect image Oscar winner Rain Man.
Each Could and Levinson have beforehand made movies about Pennsylvania scandals: Could directed Children for Money, the 2014 documentary a few Pennsylvania judicial corruption scandal of the identical identify. Levinson directed Paterno, the 2018 HBO drama in regards to the Penn State abuse scandal.
Jason Sosnoff, who has lengthy labored with Levinson, is Bucks County, USA’s sequence producer.
The primary seeds of the docu-series had been planted when Sosnoff stated he was invited to a spotlight group with Trump supporters on Jan. 7, 2021, the day after the Capitol riot, led by pollster and Penn alum Frank Luntz.
The producer got here into the main focus group with skepticism, however, he stated, “I might say, about an hour into it, I began actually listening to the individuals … I started to really simply hear and hearken to them and see them as people who’ve a standpoint, moderately than names and labels we give to them.”
He went to Levinson, his enterprise companion, proposing that they begin a mission that will, he described, “humanize the precise to the left and the left to the precise.”
The following step was to discover a neighborhood that might function a microcosm of that story, and to ask, “Why is there such opposition now between the left and the precise, Democrat or Republican, no matter you need to name it? Why is there such animosity within the air?” stated Levinson.
The reply lay in a November 2021 two-part episode of the New York Instances podcast The Day by day, “The Faculty Board Wars.” The podcast examined the bitter political fights that had come to high school boards nationwide, with the Central Bucks Faculty District featured for instance.
“In that podcast, you hear individuals from the city screaming at one another, yelling at one another, dying threats,” stated Sosnoff, who thought, “Wow, this can be a neighborhood that’s in trauma. And I feel there’s a narrative there.”
He met Could round that point, and so they went to Bucks County, a vital swing nation in Pennsylvania the place in 2024 President Donald Trump gained by a razor-thin margin of 291 votes.
“What we noticed in Bucks County was the potential for utilizing the varsity board wars, and the varsity board marketing campaign as a motor and as a story drive for the sequence,” Could stated. “These mother and father are all going to high school board conferences, and so they’re firing pictures at each side for the sake of their youngsters.”
They began filming in April 2022 and continued by the top of 2025. Over that point, the filmmakers documented many college board conferences by which neighborhood members yelled at one another, wrote tons of of offended social media posts, and fought a hard-fought 2023 college board election by which management of the Central Bucks Faculty Board hung within the stability.
“They’re all defending their youngsters, however they’re all combating in entrance of their youngsters too,” stated Could.
Two of these youngsters are Evi and Vanessa, who had been each 14 when the sequence began filming and remained greatest pals, at the same time as their mother and father battled over political concerns. Vanessa’s father Paul Martino is a businessman who funded the conservative Again to Faculty political motion committee. His spouse, Aarati, ran for the varsity board. Evi’s mom, Lela Casey, is a contributing author to the progressive-leaning native publication the Bucks County Beacon.
The movie crew shifted its focus, partly, to Evi and Vanessa. The 2 youngsters had been initially reluctant to talk on digital camera for concern of jeopardizing their friendship, however they in the end did and remained pals.
It’s a part of a repeating theme, Could stated. “The children had been much more civil with one another, and had an excessive amount of respect for one another, far more than plenty of the adults did.”
The filmmakers wished to use equity to all sides within the battles and provides everybody a say on digital camera. Profitable the belief of some contributors was more durable than successful the belief of others.
“The conservative of us that we talked with seen us because the media. ‘You’re making a film, so that you’re gonna bash us. We don’t need to be a part of that.’ So it took some time to actually persuade them,” stated Could, who believes the crew has been capable of create a “nonbiased portrayal.”
However the rancor has continued, nonetheless.
Bucks County Neighborhood Faculty was set to host an area premiere screening of the documentary on Sept. 15, however canceled it two days earlier. The screening as a substitute befell that very same evening at a distinct venue: the Hiway Theater in Montgomery County’s Jenkintown, a Democratic stronghold.
In an announcement offered to the media, the BCCC stated the screening was cancelled after “after we acquired info that raised issues about our means to offer a protected surroundings for campus guests.”
“With the docuseries premiering regionally on WHYY in lower than one week,” the assertion learn, “and erring on the aspect of warning, the choice was made to cancel the occasion.”
“It’s clearly unlucky,” Could and Sosnoff stated to The Inquirer, “We had taken months to plan a fantastic occasion at this location.” The whole level of the particular screening was, they stated, “to thank the neighborhood for his or her hospitality over the previous 4 years, and specifically, thank all those that participated in our mission.”
“There was no grand conspiracy and no safety threats that we’re conscious of,” they stated. “Sadly, we stay in fearful occasions, and whereas the varsity was not appearing with in poor health intentions, they took one thing away from the neighborhood they’re alleged to serve. Our sequence is all about neighborhood — how it may be constructed and the way it may be destroyed — and our purpose is to foster extra belief going ahead.”
Bucks County, USA is on the market to stream by way of the PBS app, in addition to The World Channel.
