It’s getting a little easier to watch movies without worrying about surprise content.
Films such as I Can Only Imagine, Unplanned and Stronger Than Carr have drawn audiences in search of quality films. Executive producer and filmmaker Joe Knopp, as well as producer Joy Thayer, joined me in a recent Greenelines podcast to discuss their newest film feature to be released on Oct. 1, 2020.
Joy told me, “The movie is called The Trump I Know. And it really came about through Joe’s work. We had worked on Unplanned, and there were some different things happening in the political climate, and he happened to be able to meet Mike Pence, who said, ‘You need to meet with Lara Trump.’
“Joe and Lara struck up a friendship,” Joy said. “Joe was scrolling through Instagram one day, and his daughter had seen a picture of Lara, and she asked Joe who Lara was. And Joe said, ‘You know, it’s funny that you don’t know our first family even better than we know the British Royals. He wanted to give his daughter a role model that she could look up to. That was the beginning of the project.”
“We did about 31 interviews of different powerful women, and it was such a privilege to get to know who they are,” Joy said. “How well do we know the president besides what we see on social media? We make assumptions of who he is and about his family and different individuals close to the family. I did an interview earlier today, and I was reminded people prejudge us for what they think they know of who we are,” she said.
Joe added that “we don’t know who these families are; we don’t know the women in the Trump family, the women in the administration, which is primarily what we focused on in this documentary. All the amazing women are strong mothers, and they’re strong advocates for family. They are also fighting for this country. They want America to be the America that they grew up in,” he said.
“I think there are people who have questions and are seeking understanding and looking for answers,” Joe said. “I think that they would be ones that would be open to watching this film. I’d hope that even if this project doesn’t change anybody’s mind, that people would see a different side or a different perspective than they ever imagined.”
The film was made under the shadow of COVID-19, riots and a heavily charged political atmosphere. “I think that through the process of a lot of prayer, and a lot of just figuring it out and doing the best that we could with what we knew our expertise was, God just worked out all of the details,” Joy said.
“We leaned on Him every day, every moment, and we’re like, ‘OK, this is not in our control.’ There are so many things that were not in our control. Yeah, we had to give up and just say, ‘Lord, you know the story you want to be told. You know the people you want in this film; you know how to get access to things we don’t have access to.’ And He just gave us so much favor and so many divine appointments. And I really think that He used all of our giftings and talents to the best of what we could do. And then He did all the rest,” she said.
Joe added, “I do believe the American people. I give them a lot of credit. And I do believe because of the extremes that are out there today that play out on our television every single night, I believe people are looking and searching for the truth more than ever before. And they’re not just being lemmings to what they hear on TV. So if that trajectory continues, between now and Nov. 3, that I do believe there’s a great chance that the American people will recognize that we need him [Trump] in office to keep this country as we love it,” he said.
Find the movie at thetrumpiknow.com. The podcast is available at this link.
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