In Asif Kapadia‘s latest documentary, “2073,” Ivanka Trump celebrates her 30th year as leader of a nightmarish fascist police state that was once America. The docudrama blends interviews with journalists and archival real-life news footage with a fictional story starring Samatha Morton to tell a story about a dystopic future that doesn’t feel too far off.
The film is inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 featurette “La Jetée,” about a time traveler who risks his life to change the course of history and save the future of humanity. “2073” follows Morton, who plays a survivor of a near-future global catastrophe caused by AI, climate change, anti-democratic authoritarianism and technocratic mass surveillance. Morton’s character lives in a nightmarish America led by a fascist police state.
“I felt like, what are the genres that people go to the cinema and see,” says Kapadia. “They love horror films. So I thought, I’ll give you a horror film.”
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The Trump family, the Murdoch family, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Xi Jinping, Mohammed Bin Salman, Narendra Modi, the Koch brothers, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Peter Thiel and many more are featured throughout the docu. The past is pieced together using footage from approximately 60 different countries. In the opening sequence of the doc, clips of the recent devastation in Gaza are used to reveal an earth-shattering catastrophe.
“This film came out of my gut instincts and a feeling about something that’s going on globally,” says Kapadia. “The most terrifying things in the film are fact. The most shocking things are being said by real people who are actually now in power in this country.”
Backed by Neon, Double Agent, and Film4, “2073” debuted at the Venice Film Festival in September and will be released in theaters on Dec. 27.
Kapadia, who won the Best Feature Documentary Oscar in 2016 for “Amy,” spoke with Variety about “2073” ahead of the film’s theatrical release.
Members of the Trump family are mentioned in the film, which was made long before the 2024 presidential election. If Donald Trump had not won the election, would you have edited the Trump mentions out of the film?
Pretty much all of the film’s financiers and execs who are from the U.S. at some point said, “Why have you got Trump in the movie? Get rid of him.” He was old news when I began working on the movie. But the film itself is a time capsule about now. So even if Trump didn’t get reelected, his [presidency] happened. So, I refused to remove any Trump references. That [sequence] where Ivanka Trump is celebrating her 30th year in power is there because the idea of a two-term American presidency, I don’t think, will be around forever.
Did you make “2073” a sci-fi horror doc to attract audiences who wouldn’t go to a movie theater to watch a documentary?
Absolutely. With all of my films, particularly the docs that I’ve made like “Senna” and “Amy,” I want them to break out of the kind of box of the documentary. I want my films to be for the big screen. I want people to be in a dark room and put away their cell phones so that they can experience something and then talk about it. I always feel that my films should be as cinematic as possible, and I don’t want them to feel like they are meant for television. So, the whole intention with every film I make, because I’m from that generation, is to make it for the big screen and for it to feel like a movie and to compete with every other movie that’s out there.
Is the hope that audiences will watch “2073” and try to make a change?
If people are comfortable, nothing changes. Change comes from being afraid. From worrying and from realizing we have to do something. Some people think, “It’s not our problem. It’s someone else’s problem. I’m fine.” The aim of the film is to shock and scare people to get them to act. That’s the idea.
What actions would you recommend taking?
In the film we talk about what life used to be like and where we are heading, and then there’s a bit in-between, which is like the boiling frog in hot water. We are that frog. We are in boiling water right now, and it’s getting hotter in terms of the climate, democracy, journalism, surveillance, and tech. All of that is happening right now. So we have to start doing something. If you are really lost for words and don’t know what to do, then I would say the key thing about the film is that it’s also an ode to journalism. The journalists that we feature who are in the film — look them up. Read their books. Read their articles. Understand what they stand for, and they will give you the solutions.
You began your career as a narrative filmmaker. You could have made “2073” a sci-fi fiction movie. Why did you decide to make a hybrid doc?
Because I’d still be begetting notes on the screenplay, and everything would be out of date. The thing about fiction is something happens, and then they turn it into a movie, and I wanted to make a film before it happened. This film is coming out while it’s happening. That’s why I fell slightly out of love with fiction; as a process, it’s very conservative. It’s loads of notes, loads of development, and loads of going round and round in circles. Then you are waiting for four years to cast the film. I like flipping it on its head. Also, I find that working in nonfiction and working in docs on a smaller budget, with a smaller crew and team, and with fewer executives, lets me follow my instincts.
Were you surprised, given the current docu market that Neon took on this film?
A lot of [distributors] just don’t want to touch politics. They don’t want to go anywhere near anything political. They don’t want to piss off any world leaders because it might affect where their service is available, let’s just say. So I had the dream team because I wanted “2073” to be theatrical, and the people who came on board and believed in me have been there all the way through supporting that vision.