During one long, tense weekend in Iceland, the fate of the planet hangs in the balance as two world leaders seek to hammer out a treaty in Director Michael Russell Gunn’s historical political drama, The Brink of War.

Gunn’s film takes us back to the Cold War days of 1986 when U.S. President Ronald Reagan races against time to salvage a deal with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that could dismantle nuclear arsenals or ignite disaster. With pressure mounting on all sides, every word spoken brings the world closer to peace or to the brink of destruction.

On September 5 after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Gunn discussed the making of The Brink of War during a Q&A moderated by Director Rawson Marshall Thurber ( Red Notice ). He is also scheduled to speak about the film following the New York screening on September 9.

During the Los Angeles conversation, Gunn revealed that in his attempt to hew as close to the actual story as possible, he opted to shoot the film in Iceland in the very house where the talks took place and one of the techniques he adopted to tell the story cinematically was placing a black bar between Gorbachev and Reagan.

“I was trying to figure out a way to separate them as much as possible with both the lens choice and the actual framing so that by the end of the film they literally are smushed up to one another physically to show this kind of distance that they’ve come. Then they snap back apart right when the picture falls off the wall. The table shrinking was something that I always wanted to do. I always wanted to try to find a visual way to convey their coming together and so we built three tables in different sizes and ran it and ran the scene all the way through every time. I pitched the financiers early on that I wanted to do it and they were like, ‘Just so long as you cover it with a wide table.’ The guys (Jeff Daniels as Reagan and Jared Harris as Gorbachev) were very trusting, and I was really grateful. They got right up elbow to elbow against one another and Jeff looked at Jared and was like, ‘See at the premiere buddy.’ They just believed it and we got in the end.”

The Brink of War is Gunn’s feature directorial debut. He became a DGA member in 2024.