A controversial film shoot in a small Montana city, backed by Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, has generated attention in recent days over its dramatic recreation of the killing of Renee Good by immigration agents.
But the production — the subject of a drawn-out battle between residents and film crews in Livingston, population 8,040 — has not only drawn political criticism. The film has also blocked access to the city’s only food pantry, creating a bottleneck of crucial food aid for the nearly 1 in 8 county residents who rely on its services.
“There’s a dignity aspect that’s really concerning to us,” said Kaya Patten-Fusselman, executive director of the Livingston Food Resource Center. “Effectively, these people who are coming in are walking past this recreation of an ICE shooting.”
The Daily Wire is shooting the film in Livingston, The Bulwark reported last week, under the working title “Pawn Shop.” Starring actors Danny Trejo and Harvey Keitel, the film follows an ICE officer barricaded inside a pawn shop with a detainee following a clash with liberal protesters in the street.
The movie’s reported script includes a graphic recreation of the Jan. 7 killing of Good, a 37-year-old woman who was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis — though it justifies the killing by having the victim ram an ICE agent first. Clips of that scene, featuring a local protest of the movie set, were posted on social media last week.
Shooting for the film has taken place across the street from the Livingston food bank for roughly two weeks, Patten-Fusselman told HuffPost in a phone interview. But, much like other residents and business owners in the area, she wasn’t notified the Daily Wire would be filming scenes of a fatal ICE shooting in front of the food pantry until she saw the set coming up.
And it wasn’t until days before filming began that she learned that access to the pantry would be restricted. The Food Resource Center is only open Tuesdays and Thursdays for four hours per day, meaning its clients have missed two full weeks of aid since filming began on Sept. 24.
“I found out, you know, two or three days beforehand that we weren’t going to have access to our pantry entrance — and not just for one day, but for five entire shopping days,” she said.
A scene for the Daily Wire production “Pawn Shop” is filmed on Oct. 2, 2026, in Livingston, Montana.
William Campbell via Getty Images
The Livingston Food Resource Center is one of the only food pantries in Montana’s Park County and serves roughly 2,300 people, Patten-Fusselman explained. Current demand for food aid is higher than it was at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and “hundreds” of households visit the food pantry, she added.
So when the Daily Wire started filming in front of the Food Resource Center parking lot on Sept. 24, it had a significant impact on its service. Patten-Fusselman said the food bank has seen a 17% reduction in traffic since filming began, thanks to road closures in front of the building. One senior woman, she said, ended up going home without accessing the pantry because the parking lot was closed.
“She was like: ‘Well, I have a can of tuna and some bread, I’ll try to come back next week,’” said Patten-Fusselman. “It’s genuinely impacting our clients’ ability to get food.”
And heightened security around the production site, thanks in part to local protests against “Pawn Shop,” has led to some tense incidents between food bank patrons and a growing force of armed guards patrolling the closed street. In one instance, Patten-Fusselman said she witnessed security guards stopping a client who was trying to enter the pantry.
“He was riding his bike down the sidewalk, which was supposed to be allowed,” she said.
Inconsistent communication from film production crews and the Livingston city council about road closures and the security perimeter around the shoot has worsened the situation. Producers, for example, had initially told Patten-Fusselman that food bank clients would be allowed on the sidewalk when filming was not taking place, but later said that they weren’t comfortable allowing people in those areas. Food pantry clients were later allowed on the sidewalk by the Daily Wire crew.
Patten-Fusselman primarily pinned the confusion around the film shoot on a “process issue” related to Livingston’s permissive filming rules. The city, she said, initially gave the Daily Wire full access permits that have had a “tangible” impact on the community.
“They have said to me they don’t want to restrict access to the food pantry,” she said of the film’s production team. “My point to the city commission is they [the production] don’t have to work with us at all, because the city gave them permits.”
“It’s genuinely impacting our clients’ ability to get food.”
– Kaya Patten-Fusselman, executive director of the Livingston Food Resource Center
Patten-Fusselman said residents were also concerned about the diversion of city resources, such as some of Livingston’s force of 16 police officers, to the film shoot.
And she insisted that the community reaction was less about the film’s political overtones and more about its impact on their lives, despite insinuations from Shapiro himself that opposition to his film was “censorship.”
“They think people are irritated by this film because of the content, but it’s really a dignity aspect,” she said. “What I observed from the community … was not people reacting about the content of the film, it was a reaction to the lack of information they were given by the city and concerns about the actions of security guards.”
Amid backlash from residents, the Livingston City Commission over the weekend temporarily paused permits for “Pawn Shop” filming operations. But the council voted on Monday night to allow the shoot to continue.
The Montana Free Press reported Monday that the commission meeting, which lasted several hours, featured public comment from residents who stressed their concerns about public safety around the movie shoot and their worries about its effects on local businesses.
Grant Gager, Livingston’s city manager, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It’s unclear whether the Daily Wire crew has resumed filming as of Oct. 6.
Patten-Fusselman told HuffPost on Tuesday that the decision to reinstate the filming permit came with “contingencies,” including one requiring access to the Food Resource Center on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“I think the commission made the right legal decision, and we’re pleased that everyone worked together to reinstate access to one of our community’s most essential services,” she said. “We look forward to working with the commission to improve the permitting process moving forward, as this process has proven to be woefully inadequate to the point of making national and international news.”
A spokesperson for the Daily Wire did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Shapiro said Tuesday that the Livingston City Commission had only pulled its film permit “under pressure from radical Left-wing protesters.”
“The commissioners basically violated the First Amendment openly,” he claimed on an episode of his web show.
And in an earlier post on X, Shapiro contended that protesters “threatened” the film crew and disrupted production. The city commission, he said, “backed down because we threatened to sue them under the First Amendment.”
Last month, the Daily Wire also released “Run, Hide, Fight: Infidels,” a film featuring actor Jonathan Majors that centers on an Islamic terror attack at a U.S. college campus. The movie is a thinly veiled criticism of university pro-Palestine protesters and liberals. It currently has a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes — slightly lower than 2009’s “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.”
