PRESS RELEASE from Victory Film Group

GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN TO ATTEND PREMIERE OF THE UNDEFEATED AT PELLA OPERA HOUSE IN PELLA, IOWA



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (June 25, 2011)– Victory Film Group VictoryFilmGroup.com and ARC Entertainment announced today that Governor Sarah Palin and her husband Todd will attend the premiere of The Undefeated at the historic Pella Opera House on Tuesday June 28 at 5pm Central Time in Pella, Iowa. Immediately after the showing, Victory Film Group and ARC Entertainment will host a traditional Iowa cookout to thank the Pella Opera House and the people of Pella.

In accepting the invitation to attend the premiere, Sarah Palin stated, “We are very excited to visit historic Pella and its opera house and look forward to seeing the finished film for the first time with fellow Americans from the heartland.”

Responding to the Palin’s announcement that they will attend the Iowa premiere, Larry Peterson, Chairman of the Board of the Pella Opera House said, “We look forward to hosting Governor Palin and her husband, Todd, at our beloved opera house as we welcome them to our community.”

“We are incredibly excited about Governor Palin and her husband Todd’s attendance at a location that speaks to the basic core values of The Undefeated,” said Stephen K. Bannon, the writer and director of the film.

“We are delighted that Governor Palin and her husband Todd have accepted our invitation to join us at the Iowa premiere of what we believe is a truly moving and extraordinary film,” said Trevor Drinkwater, CEO of ARC Entertainment, the film’s worldwide distributor.

The film begins its national rollout exclusively in AMC Theatres in 10 cities the week of July 15th. The film will debut in Dallas, Denver, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Atlanta, Orange County, Phoenix, Houston, Indianapolis, and Kansas City, with plans to take it nationwide in additional markets thereafter.

The Undefeated features leading prominent political commentators Mark Levin, Tammy Bruce and Andrew Breitbart as well as conservative activists Kate Obenshein, Sonnie Johnson and Jamie Radtke. Additionally, the film features interviews with Alaskan civil servants, elected officials and advisors who were involved in Alaskan politics during Governor Palin’s tenure.

The Undefeated, which was written and directed by Stephen K. Bannon and produced by Bannon and Victory Film Group co-founder Glenn Bracken Evans and Dan Fleuette, chronicles Sarah Palin’s rise from obscurity to national prominence.

About Victory Film Group

Victory Film Group develops, produces and distributes documentaries and films that address today’s leading political, socioeconomic and cultural issues while incorporating the conservative perspective.


ABOUT THE FILM

Shortly after Republicans swept last November to a historic victory in which Sarah Palin was credited with playing a central role, the former Alaska governor pulled aside her close aide, Rebecca Mansour, to discuss a hush-hush assignment: Reach out to conservative filmmaker Stephen K. Bannon with a request. Ask him if he would make a series of videos extolling Palin's governorship and laying to rest lingering questions about her controversial decision to resign from office with a year-and-a-half left in her first term. It was this abdication, Palin knew, that had made her damaged goods in the eyes of some Republicans who once were eager to get behind her potential 2012 presidential campaign.

The response was more positive than Palin could have hoped for. He'd make a feature-length movie, Bannon told Mansour, and he insisted upon taking complete control and financing it himself -- to the tune of $1 million.

The fruits of that initial conversation are now complete. The result is a two-hour-long, sweeping epic, a rough cut of which Bannon screened privately for Sarah and Todd Palin last Wednesday in Arizona, where Alaska's most famous couple has been rumored to have purchased a new home. When it premieres in Iowa next month, the film is poised to serve as a galvanizing prelude to Palin's prospective presidential campaign -- an unconventional reintroduction to the nation that she and her political team have spent months eagerly anticipating, even as Beltway Republicans have largely concluded that she won't run.

Bannon, a former naval officer and ex-Goldman Sachs banker, sees his documentary as the first step in Palin's effort to rebuild her image in the eyes of voters who may have soured on her, yet might reconsider if old caricatures begin to fade. The film will also appeal to staunch Palin supporters who have long celebrated her biting rhetoric and conservative populism yet know little about her record in Alaska and have perhaps written her off as presidential material.

"This film is a call to action for a campaign like 1976: Reagan vs. the establishment," Bannon told RealClearPolitics. "Let's have a good old-fashioned brouhaha."

RealClearPolitics was recently given an exclusive screening of a rough cut of the now finished film, which Bannon designed, in part, to help catapult Palin from the presidential afterthought she has become in the eyes of many pundits directly to the front lines of the 2012 GOP conversation.

Palin initially learned about Bannon's work after she saw one of his previous films about the origins of the tea party movement, "Generation Zero," which premiered last year in Nashville and was later aired in prime time on the Fox News Channel. Impressed, Palin promoted "Generation Zero" via Twitter before later reaching out to Bannon about creating something to highlight her record in Alaska, where her performance in office was overshadowed by her resignation eight months after the 2008 presidential election.

Though she did not have any editorial role in the project, Palin facilitated access for Bannon and his film crew to key Alaskan defenders who were involved with the major achievements of her administration, and the filmmaker spent several weeks in the 49th state gathering archival film and conducting research and interviews for the project. He and his team took extraordinary measures to keep their endeavor secret.