STORY BEFORE STRATEGY.

In rural Nebraska, what someone builds matters. Whether it lasts matters more. Building What Lasts introduces Jon Capps through the places and problems that have shaped his approach to work: small towns, local businesses, housing, infrastructure and the systems communities depend on. His military service and business experience provide the foundation, but the film finds its clearest example in an abandoned motel transformed into housing, a practical answer to a visible local need. Moving from Red Willow County to Clay County and through the communities of District 38, the film presents problem-solving as a habit rather than a slogan: find what is broken, understand it and make it work again. The measure of leadership is what remains after the work is done.

The road through Nebraska gives John Glen Weaver time to consider the people who taught him what responsibility looks like. A Father’s Privilege moves between Weaver’s childhood, the influence of two very different grandfathers, his military service and the experience of raising children of his own. One grandfather worked with his hands; the other pursued an education and became an oral surgeon. Together, they gave Weaver a measure of manhood rooted in work, sacrifice and presence. Filmed during a campaign journey with his family, the story makes fatherhood its model for public service. Leadership means showing up, making difficult decisions and preparing the next generation for a future one will not always be there to see.

Some campaign settings are backdrops. This one is evidence. Filmed inside Lincoln’s historic Grand Manse, the former federal courthouse, History Together places Pat Condon’s campaign within rooms associated with some of Nebraska’s most consequential trials. Condon uses that history to draw a line between the office’s past and the choice before Lancaster County: prosecution grounded in experience rather than politics. The building carries much of the argument. Its courtroom, carved wood and view across downtown give institutional weight to a direct contrast message. By the time Condon asks voters to “make history together,” the phrase means more than continuity. It becomes a claim that the standards attached to the office should endure even as the people holding it change.

Politics has plenty of people trying to play the game. This film was about something simpler: playing it right. Built around Scott Petersen’s run for Nebraska Secretary of State, Play It Right uses a familiar game of pickleball to introduce a candidate through character rather than a conventional political résumé. The film connects preparation, judgment and respect for the rules to Petersen’s approach to public service, and to an office responsible for protecting the integrity of Nebraska’s elections. The idea was simple: don't explain the metaphor. Let him play.

Most political arguments are made in thirty seconds. Lincoln in Decline takes the long view. Created as a feature-length opposition film, the project examines Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird’s record through narration, archival reporting, public appearances and images of a changing Lincoln. It traces her path from city government to the mayor’s office while assembling the Nebraska Republican Party’s case against her leadership on taxes, public safety, the pandemic response and the direction of the city. The form makes room for something conventional advertising cannot: accumulation. Statements from different moments are placed beside later events, allowing the contrast to build over time. The result is less a single attack than a sustained electoral argument about leadership, accountability and what happens when residents believe the character of their city is slipping away.

Political biographies usually begin with credentials. Just Like You begins with an alarm clock. Following David Russell through the ordinary rhythms of home, family, work and community, the film builds his candidacy around experiences shared by the people he hopes to represent: rising costs, daily uncertainty, responsibility for family and the feeling that one voice may not matter. Russell’s identities as a husband, father, grandfather, coworker, veteran and Nebraskan, arrive only after that common ground has been established. The approach keeps the candidate at the same level as the voter. Leadership is not presented as distance from everyday life, but as an understanding of it.

Experience is usually presented as a number. Protecting What Matters asks what that experience has produced. Filmed at the Lancaster County courthouse and in the community beyond it, the spot follows Pat Condon as he reflects on more than three decades in public service. His record is framed through a balance of firmness and humanity: accountability in every case, second chances where they can work, and tools intended to make government more transparent. The film moves deliberately between the institution and the people it exists to serve. That visual progression gives the title its meaning. What matters is not only the justice system itself, but public trust in how it is administered, and the families and neighborhoods affected by every decision.

Education is where a community decides what it intends to carry forward. Set against the architecture and performance spaces of a Nebraska school, For The Next Generation introduces Liz Davids through the roles that shape her candidacy: mother, educator and advocate. Davids connects her experience to a platform centered on academic excellence, collaboration between parents and schools, and transparency in education funding. The visual approach places her alone within spaces normally filled by students, allowing the absent audience to become part of the idea. The film is ultimately less about a board or an institution than the people who will inherit its decisions, and whether their abilities, ambitions and dreams are given room to develop.

Education is often discussed as an investment in institutions. This film brings it closer to home. Set in a sunlit Lincoln park, Strong Foundations follows Carolyn Bosn and her family through a series of candid, energetic moments before settling into a direct appeal to voters. Against those images, Bosn connects strong schools to a strong community and points to what she describes as Nebraska’s largest investment in education funding. The film’s argument is made as much through the setting as the script: education is not presented as an abstract policy debate, but as something lived by families, and carried forward by their children.

Defend Nebraska tells its story almost entirely through movement: a flight suit, an open runway, a plane leaving the ground and Nebraska seen from above. Built around John Glen Weaver’s military aviation background, the film turns the act of flying into a portrait of readiness, perspective and continued service. The landscape below is not simply a campaign location; it becomes the thing the title asks him to defend. With almost no spoken argument, the film relies on visual association. Weaver’s experience, Nebraska’s land and the responsibility of public office are brought together in one sustained metaphor: service may change its form, but the mission remains.

Before education becomes policy, it begins in a classroom. The Foundation of Learning introduces Dr. Linda Vermooten through the environment at the center of her campaign: Nebraska’s schools. Drawing on more than 25 years of experience in psychology and education, the film presents her candidacy for the State Board of Education as an extension of work already devoted to understanding how children learn and what they need to thrive. Classrooms, hallways and direct address give the policy argument a tangible setting. The film connects Vermooten’s professional experience to a clear set of priorities: academic achievement, reading, writing and arithmetic, local control and parental engagement, while returning each of them to the same measure: whether every student has the opportunity to reach their potential.

Back the Blue makes its position clear from the opening frame. Filmed alongside police vehicles and public-safety landmarks in Northeast Lincoln, the spot places Russ Barger’s law-enforcement message directly in the community he seeks to represent. Barger points to his Fraternal Order of Police endorsement before outlining his positions on cash bail, minimum sentencing and police resources. The approach is intentionally direct. There is no extended biography or supporting narrator, only the candidate, the setting and a concise contrast with his opponents. The film turns an endorsement into a larger statement about priorities: public safety requires more than expressions of support. It requires policy, funding and a willingness to take a side.

The shortest endorsement in the campaign may also have been the most personal. Vote for Mom places Carolyn Bosn’s children in front of the camera and lets them make the case for their mother themselves. Each delivers a brief appeal before the film brings the entire family together for a final call to vote. There is no policy argument and no conventional political résumé. The idea rests on something more immediate: introduce the candidate through the people who know her in a different role entirely. What begins as a series of individual voices becomes a family portrait, and a campaign message with warmth, spontaneity and just enough imperfection to feel real.

Promises are easy to make. A record is harder to manufacture. Filmed in and around the Nebraska State Capitol, A Record of Relief grounds Carolyn Bosn’s tax message in the place where that record was made. Bosn speaks directly about the pressure taxes place on families and distinguishes her candidacy through what she describes as a proven history of delivering relief. The visual approach gives a concise policy argument a sense of evidence and place. Conversations inside the Capitol, moments with constituents and a direct address outside the building connect the campaign claim to the work of governing. The film keeps its measure of experience simple: not what a candidate intends to do, but what she can point to having done.

Before education became an argument, it was a collection of small memories. Back to Basics moves through the familiar landmarks of growing up: lunch boxes and playground games, reading and arithmetic, Friday-night lights, school dances and graduation. Children rather than politicians occupy the frame, allowing nostalgia to carry the film’s education message before the political purpose is revealed. The progression from kindergarten to high school turns individual memories into a larger idea about what schools should provide. By asking viewers what they remember, the film makes its closing appeal personal: education is not only a policy debate, but an experience one generation hopes to preserve for the next.

A nurse learns to look beyond the symptom. Healing the State introduces Lana Peister through more than two decades in nursing and through the habit at the center of that work: recognize the problem, understand what is affecting the whole, and begin making it better. The film carries that idea beyond healthcare to the broader well-being of Nebraska’s 37th District. Schools, tax burdens, small businesses, family life and natural resources become parts of the same diagnosis. Moving between patient care, community streets, local business and the outdoors, the portrait connects Peister’s professional experience with the place she has spent most of her life serving. The idea was not to turn a nurse into a politician. It was to show what public service can look like when caring for people is already the work.

Election reform is not usually played for laughs. Electile Dysfunction commits completely to the bit. Built as a pharmaceutical-advertising parody, the film turns voter frustration into a fictional condition with familiar symptoms: uncertainty, delayed results and declining confidence in the system. Scott Petersen’s election-integrity platform becomes the proposed treatment, complete with a prescription bottle, improbable side effects and the breathless qualifications of a television drug commercial. The humor creates room for a detailed policy message without making the film feel like a checklist. Hand-counted ballots, risk-limiting audits, surveillance and public chain-of-custody records are presented as parts of one promise: elections that perform when voters need them to. It is an unusual contrast spot whose visual language is as committed to the argument as the copy.