Oscar Nominee ‘A Night at the Garden’ to Disrupt Fox News in Los Angeles Market With Local Ad Featuring Historic Nazi Rally Footage
Zack Sharf
[Editor’s Note – Since we published the following story we received this statement from a spokesperson for Fox News: “The commercial in question was a local ad buy which was done through the regional cable system, not through the network at the national level. We have no control over what airs locally.”]
Marshall Curry’s Oscar-nominated short film “A Night at the Garden” brings viewers inside a 1939 Nazi rally held in New York City, and now distributor Field of Vision is set to disrupt Fox News in the Los Angeles market with footage of the rally. Field of Vision will debut a television spot for “A Night at the Garden” during the Monday, February 11 airing of “Hannity,” an ad bought through the regional cable system that hosts Fox News in Los Angeles.
“A Night at the Garden” assembles archival footage to show viewers what a Nazi rally in America really looked like in 1939. The event depicted took place at Madison Square Garden and was attended by 22,000 Americans. The short runs seven minutes and features a speech from Fritz Julius Kuhn, the leader of the pro-Nazi organization German American Bund. The rally’s 80th anniversary occurs February 20.
“I hope that by showing the ‘Hannity’ audience how manipulative leaders in the past have attacked the press, scapegoated minorities, made light of violence against protesters, and wrapped hateful ideologies in the symbols of American patriotism, they might become more vigilant when they see leaders do those things today,” Curry told IndieWire about the decision to air promotional footage for the short on Fox News.
IndieWire film editor Kate Erbland gave “A Night at the Garden” an A- review, calling it the best of the five shorts nominated for this year’s Oscar for Best Documentary Short. “It’s just seven minutes long, but it’s riveting and revolting from the start,” Erbland writes. “When Curry finally unspools a slim bit of information at its end, it does nothing to dampen the horror.”
With “A Night at the Garden,” Curry has landed his third career Oscar nomination. The director has been nominated for the Best Documentary Oscar twice, once for “Street Fight” in 2006 and again for “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front” in 2012. “A Night at the Garden” is nominated against fellow documentary shorts “Lifeboat,” “End Game,” “Black Sheep,” and “Period. End of Sentence.”
“A Night at the Garden” is now available to stream online via Field of Vision. Viewers can watch the short in its entirety on Vimeo or PBS. Watch Field of Vision’s television spot that’s airing on Fox News in Los Angeles next week exclusively below. The short will play on PBS SoCal at 10:30pm ET tonight via “POV.”
