Focus Features’ Dawn Porter-directed documentary The Way I See It about former Chief Official White House Photographer Pete Souza will premiere on MSNBC on Oct. 9, 10PM following The Rachel Maddow Show, three weeks after the pic’s Sept. 18 theatrical release.
The doc, which Focus is co-presenting with MSNBC Films, will re-air several times ahead of the November elections.
As Chief Official White House Photographer, Pete Souza had a first person point of view and unprecedented access to the intimate behind-the-scenes gravitas of POTUS, photographing Presidents Obama and Reagan. It was a job that gave the photographer a unique vantage point on the nation’s political landscapes. The doc will track Souza’s journey as a person with top secret clearance and total access to the President to a person who has turned his focus on the present day and who uses his art as commentary to help us understand where we the country’s pulse is what it might be missing. His past published works of photographs, Obama: An Intimate Portrait, and Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents both debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller lists. He is a professor emeritus at Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication and was a winner of the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 2001 as part of the Chicago Tribune staff.
The Way I See It is an official 2020 selection of both the Telluride Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival.
During the pandemic, Focus has pivoted with its theatrical releases, releasing the Jon Stewart political comedy Irresistible and The High Note in drive-ins and on PVOD. Earlier this year, Emma and Never Rarely Sometimes Always were available on PVOD shortly after the big circuits closed. The label’s Sundance pick-up Kajillionaire will be on PVOD three weeks after its limited Sept. 25 theatrical play.