The soul of Wisconsin

“Can You Hear Us Now?” documents the fight for democracy

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One of the most important documentaries you’ll see all year, Can You Hear Us Now?, takes a deep dive into Wisconsin politics. It shows how we went from a progressive state to becoming a test lab for gerrymandering, voter suppression and anti-worker laws. 

The country is paying attention to Wisconsin now, as we enter the final stretch of the presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. As we are well aware, we are a key swing state in presidential elections. In 2016, our once reliably blue state tipped the scales to Trump by the slimmest of margins: just over 22,000 votes. 

But this isn’t a film about presidential elections. It looks at the ways down-ballot candidates, especially Democratic women, are responding to the anti-democratic power grabs in the Republican-controlled legislature. In many ways it’s the Wisconsin version of Knock Down the House, an inspiring documentary that followed four upstart female Congressional candidates in 2018, including superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). Knock Down the House showed to a full house at the Wisconsin Union Theater’s Shannon Hall at the 2019 Wisconsin Film Festival.

Can You Hear Us Now? (Twelve Letter Films) was also going to premiere at the Wisconsin Film Festival before the pandemic shut down the spring event. I saw an early cut of the documentary while serving as a juror for the Wisconsin’s Own series. It was solid then. But I recently watched a final version, and the film has been sharpened and tightened into a compact and sometimes chilling piece of civic history.

The film is available for rental on Amazon and Vimeo. And Can You Hear Us Now? has been making the rounds of digital film festivals around the country. From Oct. 1-7 UW Cinematheque will be offering a limited number of free tickets to see the movie (request a pass by emailing info@cinema.wisc.edu and put the word “democracy” in the subject header).

And from Oct. 8-25, it will be available as part of the BendFilm Festival out of Oregon. 

It was created by the wife and husband team of Susan Peters (writer/producer) and Jim Cricchi (director), who collaborated with the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism to make Los Lecheros, a 2018 short on undocumented workers in the dairy industry. 

Can You Hear Us Now? begins with shots of the Wisconsin state Capitol (and symbolically laden statue of “Fighting Bob” La Follette) and families strolling county fairs. This is a world that is familiar to those of us who grew up here: corn fields and strip malls, VFW posts, green forests and humble dining rooms. 

It covers the rise of former Gov. Scott Walker and the swift reaction to his union-busting Act 10, which stripped public sector unions of collective bargaining rights. It examines Wisconsin’s voter ID law, one of the nation’s strictest. Election experts explain how the legislative maps that were redrawn by the Republican-controlled legislature carve up constituencies and reduce the voting power of minorities. 

But the film’s strength is its storytelling. We get to know four candidates, including Manitowoc resident Jenni Estrada, who ran for an Assembly seat in 2018. Estrada grew up poor and works three or four jobs at a time while raising five kids alone. Her husband, who was undocumented, was deported to Mexico after being picked up in an ICE raid. Estrada is the face of Wisconsin, sweating over pots of tamales at campaign events and juggling parenting and work responsibilities, including working on a dairy farm. “It’s mind boggling to me how the people who are not affected by any of the issues are deciding how the rest of us should live,” Estrada says in the film.

The movie covers the bittersweet moment in 2018 when Tony Evers and Mandela Barnes secured the governor and lieutenant governor posts. Thanks to the skewed maps, Estrada, Rebecca Clarke, and other Democrats featured in the film lost in their districts. The film ends with the Legislature’s lame duck session where Republicans successfully stripped the incoming governor of some of his powers

Susan Peters, the film’s producer and writer, speaking from Brooklyn, New York, says Can You Hear Us Now? has significance far beyond our state’s borders. “People are curious about what’s happening in Wisconsin,” says Peters. “Not just why did they vote for Trump, but what the conversations are that are happening in the state. We are the canaries in the coal mine.” 

Peters says the focus on presidential elections sometimes obscures the critical decisions being made in the state Capitol. “So many things that are happening at a federal level began at the state level,” says Peters. “But I use my mom [who lives in Fond du Lac] as an example: She reads four newspapers every day; she watches the news every night. But if you ask her about half of the things that are happening in Wisconsin, or ask her about the lame duck session, it’s not being covered well. We want to give people a sense of what’s really happening at the state level, and how determined people who are paying attention are to fight this uphill battle.” 

One person who cares deeply about the example that his home state is setting is actor Tony Shalhoub (Monk, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel). Shalhoub, a Green Bay native, says he became an executive producer of Can You Hear Us Now? because he wants the rest of the country to understand the implications of the Legislature’s anti-democratic moves. “They're using Wisconsin as a template for other states. The more successful their gerrymandering is there, the more they'll use it elsewhere,” says Shalhoub, Zooming from a vacation (now pandemic) home in Martha’s Vineyard. “There couldn't be a better example of the heartland of America than Wisconsin, and what’s so distressing is that when I was growing up, it was such a blue, blue state, such a strong progressive place — unions were strong, labor was strong. I grew up in a Democratic household.” 

Shalhoub and his wife, Brooke Adams, introduced Can You Hear Us Now? at an Aug. 5 drive-in screening on the side of the Oak Bluff YMCA as part of the Martha’s Vineyard Film Festival. He also introduced Peters and Cricchi to his contacts at Amazon. 

Shalhoub — who returns to Wisconsin several times a year and participated in a 2011 protest against Walker— says the film provides hope and can inspire people to stay engaged in grassroots electoral politics. He says the women who are running for office here are “impressive.” “They know the odds are against them yet they just keep going,” says Shalhoub. “They keep grinding it out. They are driven by ethics and by principle and they just refuse to roll over, refuse to stop. I find that so heroic. The beating heart of this movie is these women.”

Can You Hear Us Now? is especially timely as Wisconsin works to motivate people to vote in November. “I wish I could get this film to everyone I ever met and everyone I ever worked with, whether they're in Wisconsin or not,” says Shalhoub. “This film can really wake people up and inspire them to get moving and get active,” adds Shalhoub, noting the film’s focus on Milwaukee voters who had difficulty voting after voter ID laws were passed in 2011. “Engagement is everything. But because of the redistricting, numbers have to be that much greater. That involvement has to be that much stronger.”

[Editor's note: This article was corrected to reflect the fact that Susan Peters spoke from Brooklyn, New York; her mother lives in Fond du Lac; and the film does not have a streaming distribution deal.]