It’s a first for a first lady.
Melania Trump’s documentary, “Melania: Twenty Days to History,” is getting a lavish Washington, D.C., premiere at the Kennedy Center on Thursday before rolling out on more than 1,500 screens in the U.S. and Canada this weekend.
The film, which follows her life in the run-up to last year’s inauguration, has few precedents. As a movie, it is one of the few political documentaries to receive a wide release. As a political object, it’s the first time a sitting first lady has had her life featured in what is ostensibly a film backed by the White House. And as a pop-culture curiosity, it has already become a totem for the Trump administration’s pursuit of an aggressive media strategy that has at times been backed by powerful figures in entertainment and tech.
“This movie is a wild card,” said Daniel Loria, senior vice president at the Boxoffice Company, a theatrical e-commerce and data services firm. “Movies like this haven’t gotten a lot of theatrical releases.”
And then there’s the timing. On Saturday evening, an exclusive list of guests got early access to the film at a private White House screening. The attendees, including Queen Rania of Jordan, Apple CEO Tim Cook and boxer Mike Tyson, were treated to commemorative popcorn boxes and “Melania” cookies.
The party was a stark contrast from the news dominating the day. That morning, Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse. The fallout was swift, both on the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts and on its messaging around the shooting, which it has since softened. Democrats are demanding reforms and threatening a government shutdown.
In a Tuesday appearance on Fox News promoting the documentary, Melania Trump addressed the shooting, calling for “unity” and asking people to “protest in peace.”
It was a rare public appearance for a first lady who, until now, had maintained a particularly low profile in the second Trump administration. The few headlines she generated in the past year were mostly around her documentary.
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