American Thief

A secret plot to derail the 2016 presidential election connects two teen hackers trying to awaken society to the reality of overreaching government surveillance programs, a rogue conspiracy vlogger searching for truth, and a mysterious artificial intelligence programmer who knows too much. Filmed and scripted around true events in New York City from 2015 through 2018, the fictional world collides with the real, as actors participate in real events as their fictional characters, attending rallies and marches with anxious New Yorkers right up to election night outside Rockefeller Center. The result is an electrifying paranoia thriller that inextricably entangles reality and fiction, and manifests the loss of truth in the erosion of distinction. Miguel Silveira’s pulsating hybrid film offers a terrifying look at a polarizing moment in American History, not wasting any second to remind us that this moment is being eternally reproduced. Hindsight in 2020. Now.