'Civil War,' an election-year provocation, premieres at SXSW film festival

“Civil War,” Alex Garland’s election-year provocation, debuted Thursday at the SXSW Film and TV Festival, unveiling a violent vision of a near-future America at war with itself.

“Civil War,” reportedly A24’s biggest budget release yet, is a bold gamble to capitalize on some of the anxieties that have grown in highly partisan times and ahead of a potentially momentous November presidential election.

The film, written and directed by the British filmmaker Garland (“Ex Machina,” “Annihilation”), imagines a U.S. in all-out warfare, with California and Texas joining to form the “Western Forces.” That insurrection, along with the “Florida Alliance,” is seeking to topple a government led by a three-term president, played by Nick Offerman.

In drawing battle lines across states blue and red, “Civil War” sidesteps much of the politics that might be expected in such a movie. And the story, too, largely omits surrounding context for the conflict, focusing on the day-to-day adventures of a group of journalists played by Kirsten Dunst, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura and Stephen McKinley Henderson, who are attempting to document the fighting.

“The film is intended as a conversation. It is not asserting things — I mean I guess it’s asserting some things,” Garland told the crowd after the screening. “But it’s a conversation, and that means it’s not a lecture.”

“A lot of the times,” he added, “I was thinking about what can I avoid, what can I miss out and make it a sort of two-way exchange.”

The movie year has showed signs of turning combustible as the nation girds for an election where some believe democracy is at stake. At the Academy Awards on Sunday, host Jimmy Kimmel largely avoided talking politics before reading a critical social