How a documentary about the Jan. 6 insurrection covers new ground

The filmmakers behind “The Sixth” didn’t set out to make such an unsettling documentary.

Oscar-winning documentarians Andrea Nix Fine and Sean Fine originally struck a deal with the film studio A24 to capture the peaceful transition of presidential power. The morning of Jan. 6, 2021, as members of Congress convened to certify the 2020 presidential election results, the Fines sent a camera crew down to the National Mall to shoot one of President Donald Trump’s final speeches in office. They expected “somewhat of a charged event,” Andrea says, but sat stunned in their D.C. office as they received reports of growing unrest from their videographer, who followed the angry crowd of roughly 10,000 toward the U.S. Capitol.

Peace was no longer in play. The Fines would now be covering an insurrection. They encouraged videographer Caz Rubacky to leave the dangerous scene that day, and then recruited a team to help find as much supplemental footage from the riot as possible. “It’s the most-filmed crime scene in U.S. history, right?” Andrea says. They scoured the web and obtained body camera feeds. An assistant monitored Parler, the right-wing social media platform. The filmmakers began tracking down members of law enforcement, news media and the government whose faces recurred in photos and videos, to see if anyone would be willing to talk on camera.

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“The Sixth,” available now to purchase online and Friday to rent, weaves together a compelling narrative of “what the hell happened right here in our backyard,” per Sean. By relying on the firsthand accounts of six witnesses — a journalist, a congressman, a congressional staffer and three members of the D.C. police — the film steers clear of overtly political debate and instead emphasizes the personal: What was it like for Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who buried his 25-year-old son the day before, to know one of his daughters was now at risk after accompanying him to work that morning? How did Mel D. Cole, a Black photographer, navigate a crowd of people railing against journalists? Was Officer Christina Laury surprised by the level of brutality directed toward her?

“For anyone from D.C., this film hits different, in the same way that [for] anybody who lives in New York, 9/11 films hit different,” Andrea says. “It’s just a different day for all of us here. … What we were trying to do is [determine] like, okay, what happened that day? Truthfully. Really. And how did it feel to go through it? How did it affect the people who just showed up to work?”

On an early May morning, I meet the Fines at their office. It’s an airy space, decorated with skylights and posters promoting their past work (including the 2012 short film “Inocente,” which won an Oscar, and the 2021 documentary “LFG” about the U.S. women’s national soccer team’s pay discrimination claim). They were here on Jan. 6, 2021, when they briefly lost contact with Rubacky and worried about what might have happened to him. For the Fines, who are married, the attack on a Washington institution was also disturbing on a personal level; Sean is a fourth-generation Washingtonian, and Andrea has lived here since 1995.

Politics was inherent in the violence, of course. Many of the insurrectionists decried the 2020 election results, claiming President Biden had not actually won. But beyond including snippets of Trump’s speech, “The Sixth” avoids mention of the 45th president. “Donald Trump takes the air out of the room,” Sean says, a description he extends to “that guy with the horns,” too. Rather than focus on the caricatures who emerged from the news coverage, the Fines fix their gaze on the hostility of people who, in another setting, could very well appear to be an innocuous neighbor or acquaintance. What possesses someone to behave so viciously? In a clip of recovered footage, a rioter tells D.C. police officers that this will be their last day alive.

“He says it with such conviction,” Sean says. “You actually believe him, and it’s terrifying.”

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Though the filmmakers decided not to purchase any footage captured by insurrectionists, those voices are incorporated through original audio of videos captured by other sources. Rioters can be heard taunting law enforcement. They roar as they try to smash through a line of police shields and beat officers, including Daniel Hodges. Editors Jeff Consiglio and Chrystie Martinez Gouz insert clips from the insurrection throughout on-camera interviews with each of the six subjects, backing up their recollections with direct evidence. Andrea, who is credited as the film’s sole writer, didn’t want a separate narrator. “I love watching people,” she says of the interviews carrying the narrative. “The human face tells you so much of the story.”

Raskin was the first to agree to the documentary and — along with Erica Loewe, deputy communications director for Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) — describes the terror of being trapped inside the Capitol with little clarity on the threat outside. Loewe remembers using furniture to barricade the entrance to Clyburn’s office, which was positioned right above the tunnel where Hodges was pinned in a doorway. Hodges and Laury, who were called to the scene after the overwhelmed Capitol Police requested backup from the D.C. police, recall fearing permanent disfigurement after being attacked by rioters. Former D.C. police chief Robert J. Contee III expresses his frustration over the delay in higher-ups calling on the National Guard.

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A24 quietly released “The Sixth” while putting its muscle behind “Civil War,” Alex Garland’s thriller set in dystopian America. The decision to limit the documentary’s distribution to online purchase — as opposed to the theatrical release “Civil War” received, or even a specific streaming deal — has invited media scrutiny, but the Fines sidestep that minor controversy. Andrea notes that the commercial success of “Civil War” nonetheless reinforces the fact that fears of a divided nation are “in the public consciousness.”

“If a quarter of the people who saw ‘Civil War’ would check out our film, I think it would help people understand,” Sean adds.

Understand what, exactly? An obvious response to “The Sixth” is to be shocked by the human capacity for cruelty, but the Fines also proceed with cautious optimism. Each of the six subjects has continued to serve the public in some way. “When you see them,” Andrea says, “you get this sense of, like, ‘Thank God there are people like this still doing this kind of work.’” The film underscores their decency and commitment to democracy as the country hurtles toward another presidential election.

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