A film about former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin will premiere in Iowa on Tuesday at the historic Pella Opera House.
Stephen Bannon is the writer and director of the documentary, which he has titled “The Undefeated”.
“This woman has been denigrated by people not just from the left, but also the intelligentsia of the Republican Party as being ‘Caribou Barbie’, as being a bimbo, as being an airhead,” Bannon says. “And you cannot come out of this film and see the empirical evidence I kind of lay out there — because I went to Harvard Business School and this is kind of laid out there as a Harvard Business School case — that she is a woman of extraordinary accomplishments.”
Palin has been invited, but Bannon cannot say whether Palin will be in Pella Tuesday night.
“We’re looking forward to showing it to Iowans for the first time and we’re real excited and, look, I’d love for Governor Palin to be there,” Bannon says. “If she’s there, great. If not, we’re going to have a fantastic time.”
Bannon and his production team scouted over 100 locations in the state before selecting the restored opera house in Pella.
“We had so many different sites that we analyzed from corn fields to old barns to beautiful old town squares, but we wanted something that was really emblematic of the values of ‘The Undefeated’,” Bannon says. “The Opera House has had its ups and downs over the years…It’s kind of weathered through and there’s nothing more ‘Undefeated’ than the Pella Opera House and that’s why we wanted to hold it there.”
Bannon’s film focuses on Palin’s rise from obscurity, her tenure as a mayor and as governor of Alaska. The film will be shown in Pella at 5 p.m. and Bannon says if there’s enough interest, there may be a second showing later Tuesday night. The documentary will be released nationally on July 15.