Writer-director Christopher Nolan attended the Trinity Anniversary Screening event for his new film Oppenheimer, marking the anniversary of the Manhattan Project’s Trinity Test, which detonated the first atomic bomb on July 16, 1945.

During the event, Nolan participated in a Q&A panel following a screening of the film. Meet the Press host Chuck Todd moderated the panel, which also featured Pulitzer Prize winner Kai Bird, the author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Dr. Thom Mason, Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the event’s honorary chairmen: Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist Dr. Kip Thorne, who served as a consultant on the film, and world-renowned theoretical physicist Dr. Carlo Rovelli, the New York Times best-selling author of The Order of Time, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and Anaximander and the Birth of Science.

During the panel, Nolan was asked what message he hoped members of the U.S. Congress would take away from the film. This clip features his response to that question and more.