Following the 2016 US election, an Aberdeen newspaper ran the headline: “Aberdeenshire business owner wins presidential election”. Now, some four years later, the North East of Scotland has provided another take on Donald Trump’s appointment to the world’s highest office.
Anthony Baxter, the film’s maker, has had dealings with the president before. Indeed, his latest documentary “You’ve Been Trumped Too” is something of a sequel – his first film buried under a mountain of legal threats. His latest film has found a distributor.
Its predecessor was released just four years prior to Trump’s election, examining the president’s relationship with the Aberdeen and the surrounding area, particularly his construction of a golf course which was coupled with a promise of jobs, which never materialised. According to Peter Bradshaw, “Our cultural cringe to him was a mirror to what might happen in the US.”
This more recent film returns to Molly Forbes, a landowner who refused to sell to the president in spite of various threats, and even having her water cut off. Recent news from the area indicates that the council in the North East will not apologise over the way it elected to respond to Donald Trump’s controversial golf course in spite of considerable local protest over the decision to grant planning permission at the expense of residents.
With Trump’s poll numbers weakening day by day and the US’s growing Covid-19 deaths, Baxter’s film could not have come at a better time.
You’ve Been Trumped Too is released on 18 August.
