This summer’s Hammer Forum gathers politicians, veterans, and legal scholars to consider the pending threat to American Democracy posed by a potential political coup backed by rogue members of the US military following the 2025 presidential election. Introduced by executive producers Warren Littlefield and Jonathan E. Steinberg, the forum begins with a pre-release screening of 2024 Sundance Official Selection Documentary Film War Game, which sweeps audiences into an elaborate future-set simulation that dramatically escalates the threat posed by the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The film follows a bipartisan group of US defense, intelligence, and elected policymakers as they participate in an unscripted role-play exercise. Like actors in a thriller, but with profound real-world stakes, the players have only six hours to save American democracy.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with directors Jesse Moss & Tony Gerber and film participants former Governor of Montana Steve Bullock, US Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Major General (ret.) Linda Singh, former Deputy Chief of Staff at the Department of Homeland Security Elizabeth Neumann, CEO of Vet Voice Foundation Janessa Goldbeck, founder of Fascination Lab Benjamin Radd, and moderated by UCLA professor and legal scholar Rick Hasen.

Co-presented with the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law.

War Game, 2024, Dir. Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber. DCP, color, 94 min.

Producers: Todd Lubin, Jesse Moss, Jack Turner, Mark DiCristofaro, Jessica Grimshaw, Nick Shumaker