D.C. Gets Back To The Social Whirl: Joe Biden Hosts White House Screening Of HBO’s ‘The Survivor,’ Jordan Klepper Headlines Freedom Forum Event
29.04.2022 - 18:23
/ deadline.com
Opening his remarks to a crowd in the backyard of his Kalorama neighborhood home, Ireland’s Ambassador Daniel Mulhall quipped, “I’m kind of wondering: Is it legal to have so many people at a party?”
He was speaking at the Bytes & Bylines event on Thursday evening, in what could be described as a kickoff to a weekend of receptions, parties, brunches and special dinners surrounding Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner. Covid cancellations in the past two years have put much of D.C.’s social swirl on hold or in a rather tentative state. And despite a contagious variant that spread through an event earlier this month, the Gridiron Club dinner, along with Vice President Kamala Harris’ positive test earlier this week, the show is going on, with most events requiring proof of a negative test and vaccination.
A few miles away, at the White House, President Joe Biden and director Barry Levinson spoke to a reception in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden for HBO’s The Survivor, the first public screening that Biden and First Lady Jill Biden have held since taking office. The movie tells the story of Harry Haft, who was forced to box fellow prisoners in Auschwitz, and was selected to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day. Among those attending were Ben Foster, who plays Haft, along with Haft’s son, Alan, as well as producers Mattie Leshem and Jason Sosnoff, HBO chief content officer Casey Bloys, Discovery’s corporate affairs officer David Leavy, as well as Francesca Orsi, Tara Grace and Tammy Haddad. Also there: Stuart Eizenstat, Ann Lewis, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Daniel Lubetzky, Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Angela Tarantino, Mark Benioff and Susan Wojcicki.
Jordan Klepper, headlining the Freedom Forum’s Free Expression