Michael Premo was gasping for air.
asserted
Premo → gasp → air
It was January 6, 2021, and Premo and his partner, fellow filmmaker Rachel Falcone, were crushed against a wall in the Lower West Terrace tunnel at the US Capitol.
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Premo → crush → Capitol
Between the gas mask and the body armor compressing his torso, Premo was struggling to breathe.
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Premo → compress → torso
Then Premo made eye contact with a man he recognized from past rallies, who used his body to wedge Premo and Falcone free.
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who → make → Premo
When they were safely outside, Premo’s first thought was to find a Proud Boy named Chris Quaglin, whom they’d been following but had lost in the melee.
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they → find → melee
They had to decide whether to leave or continue to film.
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They → have → ?
“Now it’s dawned on us, the sort of gravity of this historical moment that we are bearing witness to, and at that point it’s like a war photographer,” Premo says.
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Premo → dawn → photographer
“I’m just following the story wherever it goes.”
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it → follow → story
The moment was the climax of a story Premo had been working on for three years.
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Premo → work → years
His documentary, Homegrown, follows three members of the far-right nationalist Proud Boys—Quaglin, Thad Cisneros, and Randy Ireland—before and after the 2020 election, which they believe was stolen from Donald Trump.
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they → follow → Trump
The film, which recently won a 2026 duPont-Columbia Award and is currently streaming on GATHR, traces Cisneros’ attempts at bridge building with Black Lives Matter, Ireland’s steady role as an organizer and Proud Boys ideological anchor, and Quaglin’s radicalization.
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which → win → organizer
It is a verité film, showing the ordinary texture of the men’s daily lives alongside the violence, with no narration or talking heads to tell viewers how to feel about either.
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It → show → either
And it feels less like documentation of a historic event and more like access into a current reality—one that many people would rather dismiss as extreme.
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people → feel → that
I watched the film as part of Project All, an initiative of the equity-focused research institute PolicyLink that argues the country’s way forward means bridging ideological gaps.
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way → watch → gaps
The invitation to the viewing stated: “Americans still hold a deep love for their country and for one another—an untapped source of energy that can be mobilized to chart a new course above the fray of polarization.”
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that → state → polarization
It seemed an odd choice to use a film about the Proud Boys as an opening to connection.
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It → seem → connection
But Homegrown raised some questions for me, including: How did Premo, a Black man, manage to embed himself within an organization that, while describing itself as non-racist “Western chauvinists,” has been repeatedly linked to white supremacy?
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that → raise → supremacy
For viewers eager to condemn the Proud Boys, Homegrown replaces moral distance with something more uncomfortable: the idea that these men are not extraordinary.
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men → condemn → something
Premo’s refusal to editorialize or explain his subjects means viewers see men who are in many ways familiar, who love their kids, who push back against racism in their own ranks, and who genuinely believe they’re on the right side of history—just as many viewers might believe themselves to be.
uncertain
themselves → editorialize → history
Premo, 44, says he’s always been driven to understand people across differences.
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he → say → differences
Growing up in Albany, New York, the son of civil servants who worked for the state, he recalls as a child reading The Big Book of Peace, which included a drawing of an Israeli and a Palestinian.
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which → grow → Israeli
“I think the headline was something like, ‘Which is the Palestinian and which is the Israeli?’ and my younger self was trying to discern the difference,” he says.
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he → think → difference
“And the point is there is no difference.
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point → be → ?
They’re just people.”
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They → ’re → ?
When he was older, Premo went to college in Boston.
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Premo → go → Boston
He told me about an incident in which someone smeared urine and feces on his dorm door and wrote: “Michael Premo is a bitch N—.”
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Premo → tell → door
While Premo says the school administration was sympathetic, they ultimately did little to resolve the issue and framed it as the person “acting out.”
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they → say → person
So in the aftermath of the 2016 election, Premo was surprised by how many people were shocked at Trump’s victory.
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people → surprise → victory
He made Homegrown, in part, as an explanation.
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He → make → explanation
“To me he seemed to epitomize everything that America is but pretends it’s not,” he says.
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he → seem → everything
“I feel like Donald Trump was saying all of the quiet things out loud.”
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Trump → feel → things
He approached the men in the documentary from a place of wanting to understand.
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He → approach → place
“I told them that I wanted to make a film about people fighting for America and I wanted to understand what they were fighting for, and why,” he says.
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he → tell → what
Before Premo started filming, he assumed that the far-right groups he met with would be predominantly white and was nervous about how he would be treated.
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he → start → ?
But that didn’t turn out to be the case with the Proud Boys.
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that → turn → Boys
Founded in 2016, the group became known for street violence and confrontations with left-wing protesters. In 2020, Proud Boys tore down Black Lives Matter banners from two historic Black churches in Washington, DC; their leader, Enrique Tarrio, later pleaded guilty to burning one of them.
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leader → found → them
What Premo found was that the Proud Boys were multiracial, and, once he had earned the trust of Ireland and Cisneros, who were the leaders of their respective Proud Boy chapters, he was accepted.
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he → find → chapters
When some members did make racist remarks, Premo says Ireland defended him.
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Ireland → make → him
Still, Premo found the constant macho rhetoric and violence he witnessed while filming mentally and emotionally exhausting.
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he → find → ?
He went to rallies dressed in protective gear, prepared for a riot.
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He → go → riot
…and 69 more, not listed.
