Experiencing Interruptions?

Austerity

As a rural county in Washington State enters the 2026–27 budget cycle, federal budget cuts and a widening state deficit bring new pressure for austerity. Painful conversations about shortfalls, mandates, and tradeoffs begin to take shape in public meetings—where it becomes clear that choices are limited by powers outside local control.

AUSTERITY pairs footage and audio from county budget discussions with two scenes from intimate life. As these auditory and visual worlds overlap, the film explores, through suggestion, the imprint of Covid-era financial policy and political change at the federal level on the lives of those who bear the brunt of the resulting cuts.

  • Alex Fleming McNeil
    Director
  • Alex Fleming McNeil
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Runtime:
    5 minutes 19 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    January 2, 2026
  • Production Budget:
    1,500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    4:3
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Alex Fleming McNeil

Alex is a director based in Washington State. He is interested in the everyday life of American institutions, and the changes they face in the 21st century. His films have been featured in festivals around the US. He holds a Master's degree in political science from SF State

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Director Statement

I have been sitting in and filming county meetings as part of a feature project. When the agenda began to turn to the 2026-27 budget cycle, I saw how federal budget cuts and a widening state deficit were creating pressure to make cuts at home.

I started thinking about how my family and friends would be affected by the cuts. I like to make "home videos," and I started reviewing the material I'd filmed—my partner giving my dad a haircut; my friend, a young trans mother, cooking a meal—against my footage of the budget conversations. I wondered how the material might work together to tell a story about the real lives that would be affected by the budget cuts.

Initially, my idea was to only present the sound of the budget meetings over muted footage of the personal scenes I filmed. But it proved challenging to pull off in the edit, so I went in a different direction that you see in the finished product.

By overlapping the sound and images of these very different settings, the film tries to hold them together. On first blush, the abstract calculus of budgeting and the intimate world of personal bonds appear to be opposites. I wanted to place these worlds within the same frame. Moreover, I wanted to suggest the vast differences in power that separate those who utilize county programming from those who set policy in DC—and even those in the council meeting with whom decision-making power rests.