Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy attended the event. | Kate Patterson/POLITICO | Kate Patterson/POLITICO WHCD: De Niro tears up at film

Actor Robert De Niro on Friday night screened a documentary about his artist-father for political leaders on the left and right and was brought to tears in talking about the soon-to-air HBO film.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Motion Picture Association of America CEO and former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) were among the nearly 200 guests in attendance for a panel and screening of the upcoming documentary. The event was at D.C.’s Long View Gallery and was hosted by HBO and POLITICO ahead of Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.


The documentary, “Remembering the Artist: Robert De Niro, Sr.,” debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January and airs on HBO next month.

( PHOTOS: Cocktails and Conversation with Robert De Niro)

After the film was screened for those in attendance, De Niro, a two-time Academy Award-winning actor, teared up as a panel discussion began with POLITICO’s Chief White House correspondent Mike Allen. The actor’s father died in 1993 on his 71st birthday.

De Niro, Jr. was interviewed for the documentary, which he said was spurred out of an “obligation” to give his father his due as an artist. He was joined in the panel discussion by the film’s two producers, Perri Peltz and Geeta Gandbhir.

De Niro, Sr. was an abstract expressionist painter whose once-well-respected paintings fell out of fashion in the 1960s during the rise of the Pop Art movement. The 40-minute film centered on his art, his struggle for recognition and the father-son relationship between the two men.

The movie opened with De Niro, Jr. calling his father “the real thing” as an artist and describing him as a “very loving father.”

The film’s producers both said they were honored to be a part of the project. “It’s been a privilege to tell a story about Bob’s father,” Peltz said, calling De Niro, Sr., “an artist’s artist.” Gandbhir said the film, in addition to being a character study, also served as a “capsule of American history,” chronicling a crucial time in the 1940s and ’50s when the art world shifted from Europe to the U.S.

Other notable attendees at the event included Dan Glickman, former Democratic congressman from Kansas and former MPAA CEO, and documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct the name of the movie.

CORRECTION: Corrected by: Trevor Eischen @ 05/03/2014 08:19 AM CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correct the name of the movie.