Q&A: 'Civil War' director Alex Garland on why writing female leads is less boring than writing for men

Acclaimed filmmaker Alex Garland ( 28 Days Later, Ex Machina, Annihilation, Men) wrote and directed the film, set in the imagined near future during a fictional civil war in the United States of America.

The film stars big-name talent including Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Wagner Moura, and follows a group of journalists traveling through a U.S. war zone, attempting to document it with photos and arrange a big interview.

I mean, that helicopter with the burned-out JC Penney sign in the background, the stadium ... how difficult was it to find scenes like that working in America?

Alex Garland tells CBC's Eli Glasner how Jesse Plemons came to star in his new dystopian epic Civil War.

Writer and director Alex Garland and cast members Nick Offerman, Cailee Spaeny, Wagner Moura, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Jojo T. Gibbs attend a special screening of the film Civil War in Los Angeles.

Because my memory of four years ago, when I wrote this, is the anxiety and the frustration with public discourse and polarization and populism, and all of those things, was shared.