Rocky starring in a movie on activist leaders

Rocky Anderson: mayor, activist — movie star?

Salt Lake City's outspoken mayor is rounding out the last year of his final term of office, and he will share the year with an unusual shadow: a documentary film crew.

Filmmaker Rhea Gavry said the concept for the film is that local leaders "are stepping into the void of national leaders not getting

much done." Anderson will be the central example as the film explores how local and state leaders have taken on issues including the environment, criminal justice, war and immigration.

Possible titles for the film include "A Blue Man in a Red State" or "America's Mayor," although those could easily change as the story develops.

Gavry and her husband Doug Monroe, who head Salt Lake City-based Gavry & Monroe Productions, have been following Anderson this spring through some of the most high-profile events of his political career, as he has become a national figure on the war in Iraq, global warming and calls to impeach President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

"You've got to admit he's a great story," Gavry said.

The film crew became part of the story this week when conservative pundit Sean Hannity threatened Monday to cancel his plans to visit Salt Lake City on May 4 for a debate with Anderson at the University of Utah.

Hannity worried that if he granted the documentarians' request to film the debate, it could be edited unfairly. Anderson said he wanted the debate open to everyone, but if the film crew's presence was a deal-breaker, he would not insist.

Neither would Gavry. The idea isn't to become part of the story, she said, but to cover it.

"We will not do anything to inflame this already highly inflamed situation," she said. "It's not the crux of our show. It's one of those titillating parts that you'd like to have. We don't write the script. The script writes itself as it unfolds."

Instead, she will cover Anderson's behind-the-scenes preparation for the debate, and she hopes to get an on-camera interview with Hannity while she's at it.

Anderson's spokesman Patrick Thronson said the mayor ceded any creative control over the documentary when he agreed to take part. Thronson and Gavry both said the documentary was the filmmakers' idea, not Anderson's, and that the goal isn't self-promotion for Anderson.

"We will be interviewing people that aren't necessarily fans of the mayor," Gavry said.