Your financial contribution is crucial in order to bring ⚠️DANGER to the screen.  Like Dr. Lee in her quest, I have been mostly self-financing this film to tell this story.  

I cannot continue filming and trying to meet the $1.2 million dollar budget.  I cannot stop filming at this most crucial time.  When we look back on these events in the future, we will only truly understand what happened if we have contemporary documentation.

Unlike many crowd sourcing campaigns, I am not going to give out a lot of useless "prizes." The biggest "thank you" I can offer is the tax-deductible status through my fiscal sponsor, the International Documentary Association for donors at every level of contribution. At other levels, I will offer credit in the film, copies both unsigned and signed of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, digital and DVD copies of the finished film as well as private screenings.

 

Although we are both professors at Yale University, I had never met Dr. Bandy Lee.  On January 22, 2019, we had dinner.  The previous weekend I had received an email from her asking if I would be interested in making a “talking-head” video version of her book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.  She had seen my latest film THAT WAY MADNESS LIES... She liked that I understood the criteria of danger regarding the treatment or rather the refusal of treatment for the mentally ill.  As a verite filmmaker, I did not know how to make a movie about her book that would not be perceived as propoganda -- and I have no interest in propaganda.

So I asked her a question,”Why are you taking this on? You certainly don’t need to be doing this.” It seemed to be an unlikely “David and Goliath” story. A petite Korean American, albeit a renown expert in violence, defies her profession's powerful association, the American Psychiatric Association, but takes on the most powerful man in the world while he sits in the Oval Office, and bears the brunt of vitriolic threats.  She has essentially given up her teaching at Yale. Her process, her zeal and commitment to this cause fascinates me. The film seeks to understand her motivation -- political? Humanitarian? A quest for recognition?

She then told me about a spiritual awakening and divine inspiration.  I was somehow disappointed by the answer and it seemed to me that the parallel to Joan of Arc was uncanny.  But, I knew my job was to show how Dr. Bandy Lee’s seemingly polemic motivation and approach harmoniously coexist for her.  But she also has a talent for pissing people off.

 

Two days after meeting, I went with Dr. Lee to a conference about the 25th Amendment at the University of Akron Law School in Ohio where she spoke on a panel with John Feerick who drafted the Amendment 50 years ago.

                                  

The film is of contemporaneous relevance and will be of historic importance. The consequences and the stakes for the president, all branches of government, the Constitution, the citizens of the USA and the world in the nuclear age, and for Dr. Bandy Lee, could not be higher or more immediate. The January 3, 2020 news of the killing of Qassim Suleimani has brought that into stark focus.

Traditionally, history has been written by the “winners.” It is unknown at this time who exactly that will be in this story, or even if there will be any winners. With the access I have to this process in real time, this film will allow viewers insight into the strategy, obstacles, treachery, infighting and the danger of the goals set out by Dr. Lee.

Donald Trump is not the story, but rather the catalyst to the story.

We live in an ever increasing isolating and polemic world.  We look back at World War II and wonder how could it have happened — why didn’t anyone speak up? How do we know that they did not? History is written by the winners and credit is singular. The truth is that because so much revolutionary activity must be clandestine, we rarely are exposed to the motivations and struggles of those in the trenches of a cause. Understanding how and why this one woman has taken it upon herself to speak out in this unconventional manner with its personal and professional costs is at the heart of this story. She has exposed herself (sometimes needlessly) to ridicule and her own very real danger in speaking out.  Many believe that she has been "infected" by the "shared psychosis" of a sick leader that she speaks about.

So how will Dr. Bandy Lee’s quest end? We don’t yet know. At this perilous moment in time we don't know how it will end for any of us.  But it is an historic moment that we need to understand.

Dr Bandy Lee knows her career will be forever changed. She knows this mission -- every word she writes, every conference she organizes, every interview she gives, has consequences. Will she, like Joan of Arc, be discarded as a crazy with religiosity? Or will her devotion to religious purpose be a shield against partisan accusations? Will it cost her her life or does she enter monastic life when the quest has ended?

TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATION
Your donation is tax deductible! ⚠️DANGER is a fiscally sponsored project of the International Documentary Association (IDA), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Contributions in support of ⚠️DANGER are payable to IDA and are tax deductible, less the value of any goods or services received, as allowed by law. The value of goods and services being offered is noted under each donation level. If you would like to deduct the entire donation you have the option to simply decline the reward at checkout.