Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza was indicted last week on campaign-finance violations for allegedly making illegal contributions to a U.S. Senate candidate. But that obstacle didn’t prevent him from releasing the trailer for his upcoming film America, which is set to premiere in theaters on July 4.
D’Souza wrote and produced the documentary 2016, which premiered just before President Obama was reelected. It grossed over $33 million, making it the second-highest-earning political documentary in history.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the film will make “the claim that 1960s radical leftism is more or less indistinguishable from current mainstream liberalism, a doctrine that he says preaches the United States is the product of ‘stealing and plunder’ from Native Americans, Mexicans and African-American slaves.” In other words, the film is a direct counterpoint to conspiracy theorist Oliver Stone’s Untold History of the United States, which aired in 2012 on Showtime. Historians panned the effort with the Daily Beast concluding that when the filmmakers “aren’t manipulating reputable sources, they’re enlisting untrustworthy ones.”
D’Souza promises his film will include re-creations of key moments in American history and will have an even bigger budget than 2016. The film is co-produced by Gray Frederickson, who won an Oscar for The Godfather Part II, and Gerald Molen, who won an Oscar for Schindler’s List.