Shows
Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”How Do You Measure a Year?” with Jay RosenblattIt says something about filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt that if you go to his website (jayrosenblattfilms.com) and click on “Contact”, the page guides you to “16mm / 35mm rental information”. Jay is that kind of filmmaker — for over 40 years, he’s been making personal, finely crafted documentaries that, regardless of format, have the look and feel of a bespoke 16mm film. Following the success of last year’s touching short “When We Were Bullies”, which was nominated for an Oscar, Jay is back with another nomination in the Best Documentary Short category, this time for the poignant and universally-relatable “How Do You Measure a Yea...
2023-02-2834 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Stranger at the Gate” with Joshua Seftel“Stranger at the Gate” charts one man’s delusion: That his neighbors are not the peace-loving, hard-working people they seem to be, but actually dangerous radicals deeply embedded in America’s heartland. But it also subtly portrays a more universal phenomenon of dehumanization–and then offers a hopeful example of where respect and love were able to provide a remedy.
Director Joshua Seftel sat down with Mike to talk about his Academy Award-nominated short documentary that tells the story of Mack, his family, and the good people of the Muncie Islamic Center as they found themselves on what seemed...
2023-02-2430 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Elephant Whisperers” with Kartiki Gonsalves & Doug BlushIt’s an age-old query: Can humans live in harmony with other creatures on the planet? On their way to speaking to this question, in “The Elephant Whisperers” director Kartiki Gonsalves and producer Doug Blush show us the beauty, intelligence, and even danger of the creatures who share our world.
Kartiki and Doug joined Mike to talk about their Oscar-nominated short documentary. They tell Mike how the elephant caretakers, Bomman and Belli, both helped the young elephant Raghu and were helped by him as well. Why did they choose not to forefront some of the most dire threats to...
2023-02-2128 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”A Still Small Voice” with Luke LorentzenLuke Lorentzen made a brilliant feature debut at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival with his sparkling documentary “Midnight Family”, a fast-paced look at a family-owned private ambulance business in Mexico City. Luke is back at this year’s Sundance, and this time he’s focusing on life inside one hospital in New York City. “A Still Small Voice” is an intimate portrait of the spiritual care department at the Mount Sinai Hospital and of one aspiring chaplain and her mentor.
Luke sat down with Ken at Sundance to discuss how he came to his latest topic, how he approac...
2023-02-1416 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Eternal Memory” with Maite AlberdiAs a realistic account of the deprivations Alzheimers can bring, “The Eternal Memory” is harrowing. But it’s also the story of Augusto’s and Paulina’s determined love in the face of this challenge. And, finally, it’s the tale of Chile’s tragic yet ultimately triumphant democracy.
Maite Alberdi (director of the Oscar-nominated “The Mole Agent”) sat down with Mike at Sundance to discuss her film and how it shows memory as not the finished product of individual solitude, but ever-created between people and even within nations. “The Eternal Memory” was recently acquired by MTV Documentaries.
Fo...
2023-02-0716 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project” with Michèle Stephenson & Joe Brewster10 years ago, filmmakers Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster premiered their epic personal documentary “American Promise” at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize. Now, Michèle and Joe have returned to Sundance with the world premiere of their highly inventive, transcendent documentary portrait “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project”. Once again, the pair find themselves being honored for their dazzling work — this time taking home the Grand Jury Prize in the U.S. Documentary category. Fresh off the first public screening of the film, Michèle and Joe joined Ken to discuss how each discovered th...
2023-01-3119 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”King Coal” with Elaine McMillion SheldonPremiering at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Academy Award-nominated director Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s ("Heroin(e)", "Recovery Boys") elegiac, stirring, and magical new documentary “King Coal” gives an insider’s unique perspective on the profound impact that coal has had on the people and mythos of Central Appalachia. As the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of coal miners, Elaine’s narrative comes from a place of personal experience and deep reflection — and stretches the boundaries of traditional documentary. Sitting down with Ken in Park City the night before her film’s world premiere, Elaine discusses the liberating effect of using hybrid storytelling s...
2023-01-2615 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Children of the Mist” with Diem Ha LeBride kidnapping. What sounds like a practice from long ago or even a tale out of folklore is actually a Lunar New Year tradition among the Hmong community of the mountains of northern Vietnam. First-time feature filmmaker Diem Ha Le explores this controversial custom through the lens of Di, a young Hmong girl, in the fascinating coming-of-age documentary “Children of the Mist”.
Joining Ken on “Top Docs” to discuss her extraordinary film, Diem describes how she didn’t set out to make a film about bride kidnapping, but, eventually, the story led in that direction. How does th...
2023-01-1842 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Hidden Letters” with Violet Du FengHundreds of years ago, cut off from the outside world and confined to so-called chamber rooms, rural women in Jiangyong in southern China did something radical and transformative: they invented their own secret language. Speaking and writing “Nushu” to each other, the women found their voice and created a community of sisterhood. In her poetical and powerful documentary “Hidden Letters”, director Violet Du Feng (“Maineland”, “Confucian Dream”) explores the fascinating history of Nushu and follows two contemporary women who are fighting to keep the language alive and true to its original spirit.
Violet joins Ken on “Top Docs” to...
2023-01-1335 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”House Made of Splinters” with Simon Lereng WilmontChildren in a shelter in Eastern Ukraine–many of whom have all but lost their parents to war, alcohol, homelessness. But the director of “House Made of Splinters”, Simon Lereng Wilmont (“The Distant Barking of Dogs”) insists that his film is one founded not only on tragedy, but on hope.
Hear Simon speak with Mike on “Top Docs” (co-Creator: Ken Jacobson). Simon discusses the cyclical nature of his film–“When one child leaves, another arrives”–and how it is reflected in his depiction of the seasons, even in the structure of the film. They speak about Eva’s fate, Sasha’s...
2023-01-1136 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary FilmmakersSundance 2023 Lineup Rundown with Basil TsiokosIt’s back! After two years of being virtual, the Sundance Film Festival, one of the world’s great film showcases, returns from January 19 – 29, 2023 to Park City and Salt Lake City, UT for a robust lineup of live, in-person screenings and events. While the second half of the festival will also feature online screenings, there is nothing like showing films “up on the mountain” to a packed audience of film fanatics. For the second year in a row, “Top Docs” caught up with a very busy Basil Tsiokos, Sundance Senior Programmer, Nonfiction, to preview this year’s lineup of (no-doubt) extrao...
2023-01-0553 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers2023 Oscar Shortlist with Anne ThompsonThe chosen 15. On December 21st, the announcement came down: the Oscar Shortlist of 15 documentaries selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Documentary Branch to compete for the coveted award of Best Documentary Feature in the upcoming 95th Oscars. IndieWire Editor-at-Large Anne Thompson joins “Top Docs” to break down this year’s Oscar Shortlist and dissect the vote by the diverse, and somewhat unpredictable, documentary branch. What were the surprise misses? Which films are a sure bet to make the final 5? And why is this year’s race for the Oscar far more competitive and, therefore, much harder t...
2022-12-2935 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Impact Filmmaking” with Chris TempleWhen it comes to making documentaries with impact, filmmakers Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci ("Living on One Dollar", "Salam Neighbor"), co-founders of the non-profit film studio Optimist, have walked the walk. Chris and Zach have created more than 15 films and series that have raised over $91 million dollars for the films’ causes. Their films and the impact work supporting them have changed lives and inspired thousands. Chris joins Ken for a special "Top Docs" episode to discuss the ins-and-outs of "impact filmmaking".
What do we mean when we talk about impact in relation to documentary filmmaking? Wha...
2022-12-2035 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”What We Leave Behind” with Iliana SosaThe story seems simple enough: An elderly man returns to his homeland to build a house for his family. And this man, Julian, seems a congenial, inviting presence: Always offering food, drink, and conversation. But in Iliana’s Sosa’s new documentary about her beloved grandfather, “What We Leave Behind,” there’s always a sense of mystery lurking.
Sosa builds this tone through her beautiful cinematography which captures not only everyday Mexican life, but also the deeper time of a place which contains the ruins of “The House of 100 Doors”--built for a demanding Spanish bride–as well as a ro...
2022-12-1533 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Retrograde” with Matthew Heineman“The pivot”. It is one of the most talked about topics among documentary filmmakers. And for good reason. An unpredictable and ever-changing world can render the best laid plans obsolete and wreak havoc for filmmakers. In the course of making his urgent new documentary “Retrograde”, Matthew Heineman (“City of Ghosts”, “Cartel Land”) found himself facing a doozy of a pivot. After years of persistence, he and his team had finally gotten permission to embed with a group of U.S. Army Green Berets stationed in Afghanistan, only to encounter, with the U.S. pullout of all of its troops, a story without...
2022-12-1337 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”I Didn’t See You There” with Reid DavenportDirector Reid Davenport joins Mike to discuss his new documentary, “I Didn’t See You There.” As the title intimates, this is a film about seeing and being seen. Reid confronts not only the legacy of P.T. Barnum–which he traces all the way to photographer Diane Arbus–but what he sees as the possibility of his own participation in the “freak show”, one which he notes doesn’t necessarily require a tent! He even questions the motivations of what he calls the “Neoliberal” documentary audience: what compels them to watch, to even pat themselves on the back?
Reid and...
2022-12-0831 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Sr.” with Chris SmithOne of them is a pathbreaking filmmaker whose oddball, bracingly original work re-defined the underground cinema of the 1960s and ‘70s. The other is one of the most acclaimed and beloved actors of the last 35 years. But, to each other, they are simply “Sr.” and “Jr.” — Robert Downey, Sr. (“Putney Swope”, “Greaser’s Palace”) and Robert Downey, Jr. (“Chaplin”, “Iron Man”), that is. At first glance, filmmaker Chris Smith’s (“100 Foot Wave”, American Movie”) beguiling new Netflix documentary “Sr.” is a thoroughly engaging up-close-and-personal look at this immensely talented father-son duo. But, when Sr. is diagnosed with a life-threatening degenerative disorder midway through produ...
2022-12-0100 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Bad Axe” with David SievWith its mouth-watering comfort food and welcoming atmosphere, Rachel’s of Bad Axe is the kind of family-run restaurant you’d be lucky to find in your neighborhood or passing through any small town. But, in this case, Rachel’s, started by the Siev family 25 years ago and still going strong, stands for something much bigger. As filmmaker David Siev shows in his remarkably candid and deeply emotional first feature “Bad Axe”, the very essence of the modern American dream, in all its complexity and contradiction, is represented in his parents’ struggles to make it in the rural community of Bad Axe...
2022-11-2900 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Good Night Oppy” with Ryan WhiteAll you need to know about Ryan White’s (“The Keepers”, “The Case Against 8”) enthusiasm for taking on the project that would eventually become his awe-inspiring new documentary “Good Night Oppy” is that the Cabbage Patch doll he had as a kid was the astronaut version (currently selling on Etsy for up to $200). Couple this opportunity to revisit his childhood passion for space with the fact that the company behind the project is Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment — makers of Ryan’s favorite movie of all-time, “E.T.” — and what you’ve got is the perfect creative marriage of filmmaker and subject.
2022-11-2200 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” with Laura Poitras“At first, I was terrified”. These are not words you expect to hear very often from Laura Poitras, one of the world’s most fearless and acclaimed documentary filmmakers. Afterall, this is the filmmaker who took on the U.S. intelligence community with her Academy Award-winning film “Citizenfour” about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. But shortly into our “Top Docs” interview about her trenchant and luminous new documentary “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”, Laura began to use words like “nervous”, “intimidating”, and “terrified”. Rather than experiencing a potentially dangerous physical situation or government surveillance operation, Laura, instead, found herself confronting something even mor...
2022-11-1800 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”In Her Hands” with Tamana Ayazi & Marcel MettelsiefenWhen filmmakers Tamana Ayazi (making her feature doc debut) and Marcel Mettelsiefen (“Watani: My Homeland”) set out in early 2020 to shoot a film about the new generation of young, well-educated Afghans, they knew they wanted to find a strong woman to tell this story. Instead, they encountered a force of nature: Zarifa Ghafari, the 26-year-old mayor of Maidan Shahr, who was not only one of Afghanistan’s first female mayors, but also its youngest. Tamana and Marcel’s thought-provoking, insightful and impassioned new Netflix documentary “In Her Hands” is Zarifa’s story, but it also opens its lens to track a much b...
2022-11-1500 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Is that Black Enough for You?” with Elvis MitchellElvis Mitchell, longtime host of KCRW’s “The Treatment”, and producer of “The Black List”, joins Mike to discuss his new documentary “Is that Black Enough for You?” The film recounts an explosion of Black Film which occurred mainly in the period of 1968-1978, placing it within the context of both the prior failure of Hollywood to provide real representation of Black characters, as well as a strand of chiefly independent African American-produced film that Elvis traces back to as early as the 1910s and 1920s.
Elvis tells Mike how the movies affected his grandmother’s (literal) dreams, as well as...
2022-11-1047 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”All that Breathes” with Shaunak SenFrom its lyrical opening shot of rats scurrying across an empty, moonlit lot somewhere in New Delhi, Shaunak Sen’s (“Cities of Sleep”) thoroughly original new documentary “All that Breathes” makes it clear that generous helpings of the cinematically sublime will be served up along with gritty doses of reality. The film follows Nadeem and Saud, two brothers who run a makeshift bird clinic and tend to the ubiquitous black kites of Delhi, which are falling out of the sky at alarming rates. Equal parts character study, environmental/ecological think piece and spiritual contemplation, “All That Breathes” exists in that rare spac...
2022-11-0836 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Last Flight Home” with Ondi TimonerWhen your dad — who is also your best friend and your family’s source of inspiration — announces that he has made the decision to die, the immediate reaction is shock and revulsion. But, after careful consideration and discussion, it became clear to the Timoner family that paterfamilias Eli, who had been battling very severe illness and a rapidly deteriorating quality of life, was ready to take this final step in his life’s journey. In “Last Flight Home”, her shattering, deeply moving and, ultimately, spiritually restorative new documentary, acclaimed filmmaker Ondi Timoner (“DIG!”, “We Live in Public”) embraces her most challenging and...
2022-11-0345 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Documentary Now!” with Alex Buono, Rhys Thomas & Seth MeyersCan we all agree that the date of August 20, 2015 should be enshrined as one of the most important in the history of documentary? In case you’ve forgotten, that’s the date that “Documentary Now!” burst on the scene with the airing of its first episode: “Sandy Passage”, an unforgettable debut starring Fred Armisen and Bill Hader parodying the Maysles’ classic documentary “Grey Gardens”. Somehow, this crew of on and off-camera SNL talent (the show’s co-creators are Armisen, Hader, Seth Meyers, and Rhys Thomas) managed to pull off the not-so-small miracle of parodying the high priests and priestesses of documentary in ha...
2022-10-2833 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Descendant” with Margaret BrownIt’s not really about the ship. The first thing you have to understand about Margaret Brown’s (“The Great Invisible”, “The Order of Myths”) brilliant new Netflix documentary “Descendant” about the Clotilda, the last known ship to arrive with enslaved Africans in the U.S., is that it’s not primarily about the search for and discovery of this historic vessel. What carries her complex and lyrical film along in its looping journey across time and place are the stories of the descendants themselves. Lorna Woods, Joycelyn Davis and Emmett Lewis are just a few of the remarkable “treasure keepers” of...
2022-10-2542 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Janes” with Tia Lessin & Emma Pildes“It’s a caper story, a heist movie, with women at the center. They were outlaws.” So says Tia Lessin (“Trouble the Water”), one of the directors of “The Janes”, the thoroughly engrossing new HBO documentary about… abortion. Set in Chicago, in the late 60’s and early 70’s, “The Janes”, also directed by Emma Pildes (“Jane Fonda in Five Acts”), tracks the mostly forgotten story of a courageous band of women, who, fed up with the lengths to which women had to go to seek abortions, took matters into their own hands (literally). “The Janes” was an underground service which provided safe, affordable...
2022-10-1748 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Blind Ambition” with Rob Coe & Warwick RossFour young men arrive in South Africa from their native Zimbabwe and find each other through their love of–and professional dedication to–wine. Tinashe the big picture philosopher; Pardon the competitive jokester; Marlvin, pious and warm; and Joseph, the stalwart leader of Team Zimbabwe--all will overcome the obstacles facing them as refugees to arrive at the World Championship of Wine Tasting in France.
Directors Rob Coe and Warwick Ross join Mike to discuss their film “Blind Ambition”. They talk about everything from the socio-political challenges of Southern Africa to how they sought to show (not tell) what it me...
2022-10-1442 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Civil” with Nadia HallgrenBen Crump knows what it’s like to be in the eye of the storm. As a civil rights attorney representing families in some of the most high-profile cases involving police killings in recent years (including George Floyd and Breonna Taylor), Ben is constantly in the spotlight. But as Nadia Hallgren’s (“Becoming”) powerful and incisive documentary portrait “Civil” reveals, it is in the more private moments that Ben really shines, offering the kind of support and genuine concern, in addition to expert legal advice, that these grieving and enraged Black families so desperately need and deserve.
Joining Ken...
2022-10-0343 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Nothing Compares” with Kathryn FergusonWhat happened to Sinead O’Connor? It can be too easy to misremember the “after” story, of how quickly in the wake of her appearance on Saturday Night Live in October of 1992, this once megastar largely disappeared from the brightest lights of the world stage . But it also is too easy to ignore the “before” story of what brought her to fame early in life. In “Nothing Compares”, Kathryn Ferguson traces Sinead’s story from her childhood years with an abusive mother and time in a reformatory school in Ireland to stardom–first in London, and then worldwide. Along the way, Ferguson skill...
2022-09-3041 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Navalny” with Daniel RoherHe survived a government-orchestrated poison attack. He pranked the Russian security agency. He endured (and continues to endure) solitary confinement in a remote gulag. Oh, and he also made some pretty cool TikTok videos. His name is Alexei Navalny, and, as Russia’s leading opposition figure, he will use whatever means possible to try to end the authoritarian regime of President Vladimir Putin. He’s also the subject of Daniel Roher’s (“Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band”) timely and relentlessly gripping documentary political thriller “Navalny”.
In the midst of Putin’s unprovoked and disastrous war on Ukraine...
2022-09-2851 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Moonage Daydream” with Brett Morgen“I was drowning”. Acclaimed filmmaker Brett Morgen (“Kurt Cobain Montage of Heck”, “The Kid Stays in the Picture”) knew he was in deep trouble creatively when he sat down to write the script for his latest documentary and days stretched to weeks and then months. When your film subject’s own creative output is as varied, unpredictable, and brilliant as rock star David Bowie’s was throughout his legendary career, the pressure to measure up can be paralyzing. But, eventually, Brett cracked the narrative code, and the result is his remarkable new documentary, “Moonage Daydream”.
Following the film’s successful la...
2022-09-2740 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Gaslit” -- Fact or Fiction with Jim RobenaltA mustard-colored Porsche races through the streets of Washington, DC. A crazed political operative holds a pencil to the throat of a former presidential advisor. An orgy hosted by a prominent businessman rages through the night. Does this sound like a documentary about Watergate? Well, it’s not actually. These entertaining, adrenaline-fueled moments are brought to you by the 8-part Starz limited series “Gaslit” starring Julia Roberts and Sean Penn about Martha Mitchell, John Dean and the events of Watergate. So, did this stuff really happen? In this special podcast that we’re calling “Fact or Fiction”, Ken sits down with a...
2022-09-0830 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary FilmmakersEmmy Roundup with Scott FeinbergThe Hollywood Reporter’s Executive Editor of Awards Scott Feinberg joins Mike and Ken to break down this year’s Emmy nominees in all the major documentary categories, including Outstanding Documentary Program; Outstanding Series; Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking; and Outstanding Directing. After considering all the angles, Scott pulls no punches in giving his take on who he thinks will take home top honors. Scott also sheds light on this year’s Emmy rule changes, how the voting process really works, recent historical trends… and even gives a sneak peak of this year’s early documentary Oscar buzz. Let the awards...
2022-08-3139 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Three Minutes: A Lengthening” with Bianca StigterWhen the writer Glenn Kurtz stumbled upon an old home movie buried in his parents’ closet in Florida, he inadvertently discovered a whole world that, tragically, had been nearly erased from history. Returning as a tourist in 1938 to the small village of Nasielsk outside Warsaw where he grew up, his grandfather David Kurtz brought with him a brand new 16mm Kodak movie camera. The three minutes of footage he shot there, which later turned up in the closet, are now among the only surviving moving images of any of the Polish villages destroyed in the Holocaust. Years later, the wr...
2022-08-2637 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Territory” with Alex PritzNot yet 19 years old, a young man named Bitaté Uru-eu-wau-wau is approached by an elder, who tells him, ready or not, it is time for Bitaté to become his community’s new leader. With Brazil’s election of a right-wing president on the horizon, bands of illegal settlers clearing forests, and the impending disaster of climate change, how in the world can Bitaté take on such a staggering responsibility? But he knows he must: the fate of not only his own small Indigenous community but of the entire Brazilian Amazon hangs in the balance. With the stakes constantly rising, first-t...
2022-08-2438 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy” with Ian DenyerIn the delightful and, yes, delicious CNN Original Series “Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy” the beloved actor/writer/director is constantly on the move, setting out to discover what makes each of Italy’s 20 regions unique. By the end of season two, Stanley had tramped across nine of them, and along the way, sampled enough pasta and salumi to feed a small army of production assistants.
London-based Ian Denyer, who came on board to direct “Venice” (for which he is Emmy®-nominated), “Umbria” and “London” for the show’s second season, joined Ken for an amiable and enlightening chat abo...
2022-08-2143 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”When Claude Got Shot” with Brad LichtensteinWhen Claude Motley got shot… everything changed. Not just for Claude, whose jaw was shattered by a bullet fired through his car window, but for Nathan, the 15-year-old youth who pulled the trigger and for Victoria, the woman who shot Nathan when he tried to rob her, too. These tragic events in Milwaukee in 2014 unleashed a chain reaction of trauma and devastation that continues to wreak havoc on the lives of everyone involved. Brad Lichtenstein’s masterfully crafted, emotionally powerful and profoundly troubling Emmy®-nominated documentary “When Claude Got Shot” explores micro as well as macro perspectives on how gun viole...
2022-08-2043 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Controlling Britney Spears” with Samantha Stark & Liz DayAfter pop star Britney Spears’ controversial 13-year conservatorship finally came to an end in November 2021, Spears credited the #FreeBritney movement: “I honestly think you guys saved my life.” Filmmakers Samantha Stark and Liz Day also played no small role. When their documentary “Framing Britney Spears” premiered in February of that year, it sparked a flurry of international news coverage and put the spotlight on a conservatorship that seemed less about protecting Spears than it was about controlling and silencing her — and enriching her father and conservator, Jamie Spears. In the months following their film, Samantha and Liz continued to delve into t...
2022-08-1851 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”We Feed People” with Sara BernsteinHe pops up often in your social media livestream, appearing from just about every corner of the globe. His head bobbing up-and-down in the frame, his voice slightly frantic, he reports in real-time from the frontlines of whatever new catastrophe has left thousands – or even millions — of people in desperate need of food and to describe what’s being done about it. He’s world-renowned Chef José Andrés and his organization, World Central Kitchen (WCK), has become legendary for its quick response in the aftermath of fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, Covid, and, most recently, the war in Ukraine. As José says...
2022-08-1644 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Beatles: Get Back” with Peter JacksonLegendary Director Peter Jackson joins Mike to discuss the Emmy-nominated “The Beatles: Get Back”. Peter discusses why after a career that has spanned “Heavenly Creatures,” “The Lord of the Rings,” “The Hobbit,” and “King Kong,” he turned to documentary filmmaking with "They Shall Not Grow Old." And how the techniques that he employed in turning the trenches of the First World War to life came to be useful when faced with the 60 hours of 16mm film shot by Michael Lindsay Hogg in 1969 during the Beatles’ rehearsal for and recording of “Let it Be.”
Peter tells Mike about the challenges posed by the...
2022-08-1535 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Lucy And Desi” with Robert A. MartinezLucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. They were America’s most beloved couple and Hollywood’s ultimate power couple. But when the studio lights were turned off, what was it like being the “real” Lucy and Desi? How did their relationship inform everything they did — from creating the groundbreaking sitcom “I Love Lucy” to running one of Hollywood’s most successful television studios? With “Lucy and Desi”, multi-hyphenate comedian-actor-producer — and now documentary director — Amy Poehler aims her prodigious talent at cracking the story of Lucy and Desi, with Emmy®-worthy results.
Mike and Ken recently had the opportunity to speak with the film’s...
2022-08-1442 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches” with Julie Marchesi and Seun BabalolaFrederick Douglass was not only one of our greatest activists, he was a great writer, an artist who worked in words. Director Julie Marchesi (P.O.V., American Masters, African-American Lives) and producer Seun Babalola (NOVA, The United Shades of America, Africa Everywhere) explore the growth of his mind and the power of his words in their Emmy-nominated “Frederick Douglass: In Five Speeches.”
Each speech is performed by one of the film’s all-star cast (Nicole Beharie, Colman Domingo, Jonathan Majors, Denzel Whitaker, Jeffrey Wright) and André Holland provides a narrative spine by reading from Douglas’ autobiographies. Inspired by...
2022-08-1239 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”100 Foot Wave” with Joe Lewis“Nazaré”. To those who follow the world of big wave surfing, the word speaks for itself. A once sleepy fishing village on the coast of Portugal, Nazaré has now become one of the world’s preeminent big wave surfing spots. It’s also the most likely future location for that most elusive of all surfing dreams: the 100-foot wave. As the hunting ground of legendary surfer Garrett McNamara, Nazaré plays a starring role in the thrilling six-part, Emmy®-nominated HBO series “100 Foot Wave” directed by Chris Smith (“Tiger King”, “American Movie”).
“100 Foot Wave” Executive Producer Joe Lewis (“Fleabag”, “Transparent”) recen...
2022-08-1151 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”George Carlin’s American Dream” with Michael BonfiglioGeorge Carlin wasn’t just a comedian, he was one of the great American artists of the later half of the 20th-Century, and he was shaped by and interacted with the great events of his day with intelligence, wit, and an ever-adapting nature. That’s what co-director Michael Bonfiglio (with Judd Apatow) of “George Carlin’s American Dream” explains when he sat down with Mike.
Bonfiglio’s (producer of “Paradise Lost 2 & 3”, “Some Kind of Monster” & “The Zen Diaries of Gary Shandling”) film traces the “straight” comic of the 60s, the more personal and edgy comic of the 70’s that we all know, and even the...
2022-08-1042 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Changing the Game” with Michael Barnett, Clare Tucker, Alex SchmiderRacking up win after win, Mack Beggs is well on his way to an undefeated season and a second consecutive Texas state high school wrestling crown. But, far from being recognized as the top athlete that he is, Mack finds himself the target of criticism from parents, social media trolls and national commentators. As a young trans man, Mack wants nothing more than the opportunity to compete against other young men. But Texas law prevents this, and so Mack has no choice but to take on not only his female competitors but also the kind of vicious discrimination that...
2022-08-0956 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Tinder Swindler” with Felicity MorrisWith 55 million matches to date, Tinder advertises itself as the world’s most popular dating app. But, back in 2019, it was one match in particular — between a Norwegian woman living in London and a charming, self-described “Prince of Diamonds” — that became a viral sensation. It turned out that “Simon Leviev” was no prince, but a convicted con artist who used Tinder to woo a series of women in an elaborate Ponzi scheme that left them emotionally devastated and thousands of dollars in debt. In the thrilling and eye-opening Emmy®-nominated Netflix documentary “The Tinder Swindler”, filmmaker Felicity Morris (“Don’t F**k With Cats”) deft...
2022-08-0145 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song” with Dayna Goldfine & Dan GellerIt’s more than a song. As Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller (“Ballet Russes”, “The Galapagos Affair”) point out in their new documentary, Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” is a journey. A journey of artistic and spiritual discovery, a 7-year Odyssey of composition, and, once all but lost, an even longer journey to find its place as one of our most admired songs, admiration which take the form of critical praise and popular renditions that can be found in Dreamworks movies and primetime talent shows. Join Mike as he travels this decades-long path with Dayna and Dan.
“Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey...
2022-07-2646 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Martha Mitchell Effect” with Anne Alvergue & Debra McClutchyCoined by a Harvard psychologist in the 1980s, the “Martha Mitchell Effect” describes a process in which a person’s beliefs are initially labeled as delusional but later turn out to be true. But who was the real Martha Mitchell? What were her claims about Watergate? And why, until now, has she been largely erased from our collective memory?
Opening up to Ken about their riveting all-archival documentary short “The Martha Mitchell Effect”, filmmakers Anne Alvergue and Debra McClutchy describe how they set out to widen the lens on Watergate beyond “All the President’s Men” to include the key...
2022-07-1830 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Fire of Love” with Sara DosaLove and Lava, Magma and Matrimony. Sara Dosa’s (“The Last Season”, “The Seer and the Unseen”) “Fire of Love” encourages such puns, and that’s no accident: The film explores the relationship of Katia and Maurice Krafft, married volcanologists as they chart the world's volcanoes from the late 1960s until their untimely deaths in 1993. It’s a film that takes science seriously, but, like its subjects, isn’t afraid to have some fun.
Join Mike as he speaks with Sara about how she’s reworking the standard nature documentary: How her narrator, Miranda July, explores science as inquiry rather than esta...
2022-07-1142 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Sub Eleven Seconds” with BaficSha’Carri Richardson is fast. Really, really, really fast. At the 2021 U.S. Olympic trials, Sha’Carri, only 21 at the time, ran the 100-meter finals in 10.84 seconds, more than a tenth of a second faster than her closest competitor. In “Sub Eleven Seconds”, his artfully crafted documentary portrait of this superstar athlete at a moment of peak performance, the director Bafic captures Sha’Carri’s split-second athletic brilliance, refreshing honesty and totally original style.
As part of our focus on NextGen filmmakers — up-and-coming talents in the documentary world — “Top Docs” is pleased to be partnering with the 28th Palm Springs Inte...
2022-06-2722 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Holy Cowboys” with Varun ChopraIn a small town in India, a cow vigilante group seeks to recruit teenage boys to join its ranks. Who are these so-called cow vigilantes and how are they using the welfare of the cow, which is sacred to India’s majority Hindu population, to fan the flames of nationalist extremism? In Varun Chopra’s fascinating, multifaceted and provocative new short documentary “Holy Cowboys”, the filmmaker follows Gopal and his friends as they come under the powerful influence of one such group that, in the name of protecting cows, espouses violence against those, including Muslims, who do not share their be...
2022-06-2537 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Beba” with Rebeca HunttLike a freshly sculpted work of clay, director Rebeca Huntt’s stunning documentary debut BEBA captures in real-time her family’s fluid interpersonal dynamics; the complicated legacies of inherited national, ethnic and racial identity; and her own brewing caldron of coming-of-age dramatics. To call it a “personal film” is both a wild understatement and a reductive miscalculation: “BEBA”, for all its personal complexities, is a profound spiritual quest intended to stir existential questions in the audience and provoke a deep dialogue. Shot in vivid and pulsating 16mm film, “BEBA” is also a feast for the senses and a fever dream for the im...
2022-06-2440 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Feeling of Being Close to You” with Ash Goh HuaA phone call between mother and daughter. A bad dream. Home movies. Seems simple, yet Ash Goh Hua’s short documentary “The Feeling of Being Close to You” expertly navigates physical and emotional space to provide a compelling, affecting story of attempted reconciliation.
“The Feeling of Being Close to You” will play at the The Palm Springs International ShortFest as part of the “In Search of Lost Time” series on Thursday, June 23rd 2PM, at the Camelot Theatres (Palm Springs Cultural Center). We are delighted to be partnering with Shortfest to promote promising NextGen filmmakers. And if you can’t make...
2022-06-2321 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Bitterbrush” with Emelie MahdavianHollyn and Colie are range riders. Every day during the summer, these highly skilled hired hands ride their horses across the remote, rugged Idaho mountains, pushing cows across sky-high ridges to their final destination. It’s hard work for low pay, but the rewards are plentiful: the thrill of the open range, the symbiotic relationship with their animals, and, not least of all, the close bond of friendship with each other. In her magical new documentary “Bitterbrush”, Emmy®, Peabody and Sundance Award-winning filmmaker Emelie Mahdavian (producer/writer/editor, “Midnight Traveler”) poetically and precisely captures the sights, sounds and timeless rhythms of...
2022-06-1445 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Handbook” with Pavel MozharAs part of our focus on NextGen filmmakers — up-and-coming talents in the documentary world — “Top Docs” is pleased to be partnering with the 28th Palm Springs International ShortFest (June 21 – 27) to feature several filmmakers with outstanding documentary shorts in this year’s festival.
In this episode, Ken talks to Pavel Mozhar, director of the IDFA-award-winning short documentary “Handbook”, a chilling exposé of the mass arrest and torture of protestors in the filmmaker’s native country of Belarus. Pavel, who now lives and goes to film school in Berlin, takes a unique, genre-bending approach to documenting the Lukashenko regime’s brutal and highly s...
2022-06-1337 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Andy Warhol Diaries” with Andrew RossiWhat more can be said about Andy Warhol? Campbell’s Soup. Marilyn Monroe. Pop Art. The Factory. Fright wig. 15 minutes. Connect the dots and you feel pretty confident in your short-hand knowledge of who Warhol was and his place in modern art and contemporary culture. But, as much as Andy Warhol is a household name when it comes to 1960’s celebrity icons, not a lot is known about Warhol’s interior life or his intimate relationships. Using Warhol’s diaries (published just two years after his death) as a springboard, Emmy Award®-nominated filmmaker Andrew Rossi (“Page One: Inside the New Yor...
2022-06-0948 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary FilmmakersMinneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival Live PanelAn expat journalist reflects on the recent revolutions that have transformed her native Ukraine. A filmmaker, looking for spiritual advice, goes to a secretive Buddhist monastery in Kyoto. A mother grieves for her young son and seeks answers about why childhood drownings are shockingly common. A young dancer finds her way back to performing after experiencing a life-changing swimming accident. What do these four compelling films have in common? The answer: in each case, a first-time feature documentary director shares a deeply personal point of view that can only be fully explored by turning the camera on him or...
2022-06-0652 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” with Rory Kennedy“If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going” was a phrase uttered by generations of pilots in reference to the storied Seattle-based company that was virtually synonymous with American engineering know-how. But, in 2018, a practically brand-new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft crashed soon after takeoff in Indonesia, followed five months later by a second 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia. All told, between the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines flights, 346 people were killed. And Boeing’s reputation lay in tatters. In her searing new Netflix documentary “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing”, Academy Award®-nominated and Emmy® Award-winning filmmaker Rory Kennedy (“Last Days in Vietnam”, “Ghos...
2022-06-0148 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”jeen-yuhs” with Coodie Simmons & Chike OzahLong before Kanye West became one of the most famous people on the planet, he was a 19-year-old up-and-coming producer of beats trying to make a name for himself in the local Chicago rap scene. Enter comedian Coodie Simmons, host of a local cable access show, who — taking inspiration from the landmark documentary “Hoop Dreams” — decided to turn his camera full-time on Kanye, sensing the young rapper had what it took to make it big. Now, 24 years and over 300 hours of footage later, Kanye is a household name and Coodie’s dreams for creating an epic documentary have also come true...
2022-05-2745 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Sirens” with Rita BaghdadiIn “Sirens”, Rita Baghdadi (“My Country No More”, “City Rising”) joins to Mike to discuss her portrayal of the all-women Lebanese heavy metal band Slave to Sirens, with a focus on Sherry, the virtuosic lead guitarist, and Lilas, the rhythm guitarist who is the charismatic center of the band. As much a coming of age story as a rock doc, “Sirens” explores not only their music, but the lives, relationships, and loves of their young lives. In this highly layered film, the backdrop is the revolutionary Beirut of 2019 and beyond, and the impact of that country’s ever-hopeful and ever-tragic fate can...
2022-05-1438 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Exposing Muybridge” with Marc Shaffer“He's not a dusty antique from the past; he's the beginning of now” That’s how Marc Shaffer describes the subject of his film, Exposing Muybridge. Mike and Marc explore the strange and varied career of Eadweard Muybridge (just one of the many versions of the name he gave himself over the years). Born in Britain, he moved to New York to sell books, and then to San Francisco to become an early photographer of the American West as well as its native inhabitants. He then had the fortune (both good and mis-) to garner Leland Stanford, rail tycoon and Califo...
2022-05-0946 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Free Renty” with David GrubinIn 1976, a curator at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnography discovered a long-forgotten item stored away in the museum’s collection: a series of stark but stirring daguerreotypes taken in 1850 that are believed to be the oldest photographs of enslaved Africans in the U.S. While the discovery made headlines across the country, they did not prompt a serious inquiry by Harvard to find out more about the photographic subjects, who included a man called Renty and his daughter Delia. David Grubin’s soul-searching documentary “Free Renty: Lanier v. Harvard” reveals the story behind the people in the photograph...
2022-05-0936 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Boycott” with Julia BachaWhile over the decades, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has periodically been front page news in America, for the most part, the issue has not taken center stage in U.S. politics. But what if it turned out that, unbeknownst to the vast majority of Americans, state legislatures throughout the country have been approving bills that not only took a stand on the conflict, but actually penalized some Americans for expressing an opinion on the issue? In her revelatory and thoroughly gripping documentary “Boycott”, director Julia Bacha has uncovered a widespread and deeply disturbing effort over the last several years to puni...
2022-05-0244 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary FilmmakersAnatomy of a Scene from ”Ailey”In this installment of Anatomy of a Scene, “Ailey” director Jamila Wignot describes the creative process behind a key sequence in her remarkable portrait of American dance legend Alvin Ailey. After building his hugely successful dance company from scratch, Ailey felt an ever-increasing amount of pressure and eventually broke down. Jamila and her team, guided by Ailey’s point of view, figured out how to “mirror and imagine” Ailey’s overwhelming sense of disorientation during this crisis. Creating a montage of clips of New York City culled from the avant-garde films of Jonas Mekas, Jamila and her editors play with time –...
2022-03-2315 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary FilmmakersAnatomy of a Scene from ”Attica”In this powerful Anatomy of a Scene featurette, “Attica” director Stanley Nelson, recently awarded the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary, focuses on a climactic sequence near the end of the Oscar-nominated film. Stanley takes us inside the prison yard at Attica after authorities have re-taken control of the yard and proceed to systematically humiliate, torture, and exact revenge against the prisoners and their leaders. He discusses the thinking behind individual shot selection, the impact of having the composer write one continuous piece of music in different movements, when to use talking heads vs. voice over and the...
2022-03-1618 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Queen of Basketball” with Ben ProudfootIt starts like a modern day fairy tale: from the cotton fields of Mississippi, to three national collegiate championships, to scoring the first basket in Olympic history. But despite all her plaudits, when all that had passed, Lusia Mae (Lucy) Harrison felt she could pursue the game no further. In his Oscar-nominated short, “The Queen of Basketball,” director Ben Proudfoot (nominated just last year for “A Concerto is a Conversation”) puts Lucy front and center to tell her own story, while he skillfully illustrates it with both a compelling contemporary portrait as well as well-chosen archival footage. It’s a story of pri...
2022-03-1031 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”When We Were Bullies” with Jay RosenblattAfter a series of highly improbable coincidences, filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt (“The Smell of Burning Ants”) finds himself back in his old elementary schoolyard making a film about a bullying incident from 50 years ago. Building on Jay’s own hazy recollections and those of his former 5th grade classmates, “When We Were Bullies” brilliantly pieces together a highly personal story that masterfully evokes universal themes and excavates a shared emotional terrain.
Ken recently spoke with Jay on “Top Docs” to discuss how he landed upon just the right animation technique to tell the story, what it was like for hi...
2022-03-0229 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Best Documentary Oscar Nominees” with Clayton DavisNow that the five Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature have been chosen, the final countdown to see who will win the coveted statuette is underway! Variety’s Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis, who’s been following the race closely for months, joins Top Docs to discuss each of the nominee’s’ chances, handicaps the race (as of the taping date!), and offers his own early prediction for a winner. He also addresses how the Academy’s Documentary Branch, which chooses the five nominees, differs from the general Academy voters, who control the fate of the nominees. And don’t forget the...
2022-02-2238 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Automat” with Lisa HurwitzNostalgia isn't all bad. That’s one of the themes of our conversation with Lisa Hurwitz, director of “The Automat”, which charts the rise and fall of a uniquely American institution–though one with surprising roots in Northern Europe. Despite what you might have seen in the pictures, The Automat was more than brass, nickels, and glass windows. It was an inclusive, and for many, magical place, one from which luminaries such as Colin Powell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Howard Schultz drew important personal and professional lessons. Find out what advice Mel Brooks gave Lisa–and check out the film to hear h...
2022-02-1839 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”We Need to Talk About Cosby” with W. Kamau BellWe need to talk about W. Kamau Bell. The talented stand-up comic and popular CNN series host/Executive Producer (“United Shades of America”) has just made his initial foray into directing with the provocative and definitive 4-part Showtime docuseries, “We Need to Talk About Cosby”. When a cultural icon like Bill Cosby, who was once so beloved as to be referred to as “America’s Dad”, is later convicted of using his power and prestige to rape women, the need to reassess his role in society, and the space he occupies in our collective psyche, becomes imperative. But it isn’t until no...
2022-02-1529 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Bring Your Own Brigade” with Lucy WalkerAustralia is burning. And so is Greece, China, South Africa, Brazil, Congo, and even Siberia. And, of course, California is burning, more so than ever. In her eye-opening documentary “Bring Your Own Brigade”, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Lucy Walker (“The Crash Reel”, “Waste Land”) skillfully lays out the causes and consequences of the terrifying, apocalyptic fires that represent a global crisis burning out of control. Focusing on the twin monster fires that engulfed Northern and Southern California on November 8th, 2018, Lucy hits the road to interview a wide range of experts, first responders, fire victims and Native American tribal practitioners to learn abo...
2022-02-0744 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Ailey” with Jamila WignotAlvin Ailey is alive and well. That is the lasting impression one gets from “Ailey”, filmmaker Jamila Wignot’s vibrant and probing documentary portrait of one of the 20th Century’s greatest artists, the late dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey. Ailey’s masterworks are still performed throughout the world. The dance company he founded more that 60 years ago, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, continues to thrive. But who was Alvin Ailey? What drove him? What tormented him? How did he loom so large for countless dancers but remain largely an enigma as a man?
In Ken’s deep dive “To...
2022-01-3152 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Ascension” with Jessica KingdonJessica Kingdon’s stunning feature documentary debut, the Oscar-shortlisted “Ascension”, is an enthralling, immersive journey into the heart and soul of today’s People’s Republic of China. With her unerring ability to capture small details and depict epic scale, Jessica gives us a privileged tour of the so-called “Chinese dream” at the center of China’s propulsive economy. Illuminating, awe-inspiring — and, at times, quite funny — “Ascension identifies singular moments of poetry in everyday life and elevates them to high art.
Joining Ken to talk about the film, Jessica describes how she gained inspiration from her great-grandfather’s...
2022-01-2842 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”In the Same Breath” with Nanfu WangIn her searing Oscar-shortlisted HBO Documentary “In the Same Breath”, award-winning filmmaker Nanfu Wang challenges both the Chinese and U.S. governments’ initial responses to the pandemic. As she did in her previous film, the devastating “One Child Nation”, Nanfu relentlessly questions government authority and gives voice to those who insist on telling the truth, even at the risk of heavy personal cost.
Ken sat down with Nanfu to talk about this incredibly powerful film, which combines reporting, internet sleuthing and compelling personal narratives to re-examine the critical early period of the pandemic. What if we could roll back...
2022-01-2751 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Lead Me Home” with Pedro Kos and Jon ShenkFocussing on the issue in San Francisco, LA, and Seattle, “Lead Me Home” manages to give a sense of the tremendous scope of homelessness on the West Coast of America, while still exploring the individual complexities of the lives of those who find themselves–often “step by step”--in this situation. Directors Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk take an unflinching look at the challenges the unsheltered face, while allowing for the community, joy, and even love they discover as well. When Coldplay’s “Midnight” kicks in half way through, you may be surprised, but you’ll soon see how Kos and Shenk demons...
2022-01-2625 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Audible” with Matt OgensShortlisted for the Oscars, "Audible"–a short by Matt Ogens–explores the life of graduating high school football star Amaree McKenstry, a life not unlike that of any other teenager with teammates, family, friends, an on-and-off girlfriend, and the rigors of the gridiron. But a life also marked by the unique culture that defines Maryland School for the Deaf. Having–after years of winning–suffered a rare defeat, Amaree and his teammates must prepare for the big homecoming game while they face the challenges that will greet them when they leave what their coach calls “the bubble” of the school and fac...
2022-01-2623 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Camp Confidential” with Mor LoushyAt the height of WWII, a group of young Jewish refugees is sent to a secret POW camp near Washington D.C. The refugees soon discover that the prisoners are none other than Hitler’s top scientists. In a bitter twist of fate, it is the refugees’ job to ensure that the German prisoners will aid their new country in the coming Cold War. Finally, after decades of being classified, this stranger-than-fiction story has now come to light in “Camp Confidential: America’s Secret Nazi’s”, a chilling new Netflix documentary by filmmakers Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan (“The Devil Next Doo...
2022-01-2626 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Summer of Soul” with Ahmir Questlove ThompsonAhmir “Questlove” Thompson joins us to talk about his Oscar-shortlisted “Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised)”. In the summer of 1969, a music festival took place in New York that attracted over 300,000 people. Featuring some of the most incredible artists of that — or any — era, it caught the cultural wave of the moment. No, it wasn’t Woodstock. And, until very recently, practically nobody knew it ever took place. Featuring stunning, previously unseen archival performance footage and incorporating an array of enthralling interviews, game-changing debut documentary “Summer of Soul” is a joyful celebration of the Harlem Cultural Festi...
2022-01-2557 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Julia” with Betsy West and Julie CohenBetsy West and Julie Cohen (“RBG”, “My Name is Pauli Murray”) return to “Top Docs” to discuss their Oscar shortlisted “Julia”, about the legendary culinary educator, Julia Child. After sharing their favorite Julia Child recipes, Betsy and Julie dive into how they used new visual tools to recreate Julia’s cooking techniques–ones that weren’t available when Julia was at her peak. They discuss her romance with her supportive husband Paul, and how Julia changed not only Public Television, but presented a new model for women in the media. They explain how she inspired superstar chefs like José Andrés and Marcus Samuelss...
2022-01-2442 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Sophie & the Baron” with Alexandria JacksonA legendary rock ‘n’ roll photographer. An amazing abstract artist. Can they team up to create something completely new and original? In this touching and inspiring dual portrait, filmmaker Alexandria Jackson focuses her lens on the unlikely friendship and collaboration between photographer Baron Wolman and artist Sophie Kipner. In their Top Docs conversation, Alexandria shared with Ken the story behind this serendipitous partnership and how she managed to capture the magic of two artists just saying, “yes”. Produced by Courteney Cox and Academy Award-winner Joanna Natasegara (“The White Helmets”), “Sophie & the Baron” is one of 15 shorts named to the Oscar Shortlist...
2022-01-2320 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Three Songs for Benazir” with Gulistan and Elizabeth Mirzaei & Omar MullickIn this poetical portrait that transcends the standard documentary treatment of war and refugees, filmmakers Gulistan and Elizabeth Mirzaei explore the dreams, frustrations and love experienced by Shaista and Benazir, a young Afghan couple living in a Kabul displacement camp. Ken sat down with Gulistan, Elizabeth, and producer Omar Mullick (“These Birds Walk”) to discuss their creative approach and learn more about the interior and exterior lives of these two remarkable people. Premiering on Netflix on January 24th, “Three Songs for Benazir” is one of 15 shorts named to the Oscar Shortlist.
2022-01-2126 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry” with R.J. CutlerWith 99.4 million Instagram followers and counting, Billie Eilish, who just turned 20 years old, is already one of the most popular and critically acclaimed artists of our time. Throughout the world, her music inspires young people who flock to her concerts and know all the lyrics by heart. Renowned filmmaker R.J. Cutler’s definitive new Apple TV+ documentary “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry” is an instant classic, earning its place on this year’s Oscar Shortlist.
Joining Mike and Ken from his L.A. home base, R.J. talked about the challenges and joys of...
2022-01-2041 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Writing with Fire” with Rintu Thomas & Sushmit GhoshRight now, “Khabar Lahariya” might not be as well-known as “The New York Times”, but, with 150 million YouTube views and growing, India’s only women-led news outlet has already established itself as an indispensable local watchdog and source of reporting in the country’s most populated state. Winner of the Audience Award at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, “Writing With Fire”, directed by first-time feature filmmakers Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, is a fascinating and inspiring profile of Khabar Lahariya’s fearless women journalists as the media outlet makes the crucial transition from print to digital.
Talking to Mike and...
2022-01-191h 01Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary FilmmakersSundance Lineup Preview with Basil TsiokosThe 2022 Sundance Film Festival is almost here! From Jan. 20– 30, all eyes will be on the Sundance lineup and on what are sure to be some of the year’s most heralded documentaries. Top Docs caught up with Basil Tsiokos, Sundance Senior Programmer, Nonfiction, to preview this year’s doc features and to give us an inside look into how the programming process works.
Basil Tsiokos is Senior Programmer, Nonfiction, Sundance Film Festival. He was most recently with DOC NYC for nearly a decade, as well as with the Nantucket Film Festival as its Film Program Directo...
2022-01-1842 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Messwood” with Brad Lichtenstein & Emily KuesterTwo schools, two neighborhoods, two vastly different worlds… one football program. When it became clear that Messmer High School and Shorewood High in Milwaukee would not have enough players to field their own teams, the two schools came together to form the Messwood football team. But playing together does not mean that the team’s young athletes aren’t immune from the systemic problems plaguing one of America’s most racially divided cities. Filmmakers Brad Lichtenstein (“When Claude Got Shot”, “As Goes Janesville”) and Emily Kuester (making her feature documentary debut) go deep inside the Messwood football program to craft an intimat...
2022-01-1452 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Radiograph of a Family” with Firouzeh KhosrovaniFirouzeh Khosrovani’s “Radiograph of a Family” is among the rarest of documentaries. Like a perfectly composed classical symphony, the film’s form and content effortlessly complement each other. The result is a film that is both beautifully symmetrical and dynamically creative. Seamlessly moving between the personal and the political, Firouzeh employs the full range of storytelling tools--from re-enactments and staged dialogue, to family photographs and archival footage--to portray how the 1979 Iranian Revolution upended her parents’ marriage and caused a surprising role reversal in the fortunes of her mother and father.
Mike had the opportunity to talk in...
2022-01-1036 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Boulevard” with Jeffrey SchwarzImagine being one of the two young songwriter/lyricists who are invited to an imposing Hollywood mansion to meet with movie legend Gloria Swanson. Greeting you in all her movie star glamour, Gloria pitches her idea for a Broadway musical based on her starring role in the brilliant movie “Sunset Boulevard”. Three months later, your musical BOULEVARD is ready for the big time. Unfortunately, that version of the musical never gets produced. But, in a delicious twist, the real-life story of the love triangle between Gloria and the two young songwriters (Dickson Hughes and Richard Stapley) ends up being a mi...
2022-01-0350 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Caviar Connection” with Benoît BringerFamous for its Beluga caviar and rich oil deposits, the Caspian Sea region is less well-known for the corruption that goes hand-in-hand with both of these highly desired commodities. Taking as his primary subject the post-Soviet regime of Azerbaijan and its strongman leader, Ilham Aliyev, journalist and filmmaker Benoît Bringer pulls back the curtain on the creative ways Aliyev uses to buy his country’s way into Europe’s club of democratic nations. Framed as a political thriller, “The Caviar Connection” makes the direct link between the Aliyev regime and officials in the stately Council of Europe, whose appetites...
2021-12-2938 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”No Straight Lines” with Vivian KleimanAlison Bechdel. Jennifer Camper. Howard Cruse. Rupert Kinnard. Mary Wings. From the 1970s to the 2000s and beyond, these five brilliant queer cartoonists broke the mold, paved the way, and told the truth one panel at a time. Each contributed to creating the world of queer comics and helped forge a vital community of LGBTQ artists that continues to thrive today. Effortlessly weaving together portraits of these five seminal cartoonists and filling in the essential historical backstory, documentary filmmaker Vivian Kleiman (“Color Adjustment”) uses a camera instead of a rapidograph pen, but the result is just as delightful and visu...
2021-12-2853 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary FilmmakersOscar Shortlist Breakdown with Anne ThompsonWelcome to the Top Docs Holiday Special! IndieWire Editor-at-Large Anne Thompson joins Mike and Ken to break down the Best Feature Documentary Oscar shortlist released this week. Anne shares her insights about the 15 documentaries that made the cut and the ones that didn’t. What are the biggest surprises? Which films have the best chance to make it to the list of the five final nominees? And, drumroll, please… who does Anne predict to win it all? You’ll have to tune in to find out!
IndieWire Editor-at-Large Anne Thompson has been a contributor to the New...
2021-12-2536 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Fiddler‘s Journey to the Big Screen” with Daniel RaimWhen “Fiddler on the Roof” opened on Broadway in 1964, many thought that this Yiddish-inspired portrait of Jewish shtetl life in Tsarist Russia would be a huge flop. But audiences flocked to the musical, and its songbook soon entered the popular lexicon. Hollywood set its sights on a film version and United Artists signed the well-respected, but hardly household name, Norman Jewison to direct. The fascinating behind-the-scenes story of what happened next is the subject of Oscar-nominated director Daniel Raim’s (“The Man on Lincoln’s Nose”) delightful new documentary “Fiddler’s Journey to the Big Screen”, which has its world premiere at...
2021-12-2235 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”President” with Camilla NielssonA presidential election held during a period of extreme political divisiveness. A constitutional democracy under threat by the incumbent president himself. The possibility of a stolen election. These conditions might bring to mind the U.S. in 2020. But Camilla Nielsson’s masterful new observational documentary “President” focuses its unblinking eye on Zimbabwe during the country’s pivotal and turbulent 2018 presidential campaign. Picking up where her widely acclaimed film “Democrats” left off, Nielsson embeds with presidential challenger Nelson Chamisa, a young, charismatic leader dedicated to challenging the corrupt ruling order. The result is a campaign film as riveting and revealing as any you h...
2021-12-2045 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary FilmmakersAnatomy of a Scene: ”Try Harder!”In our second Anatomy of a Scene featurette, we delve into two key scenes from TRY HARDER! with director Debbie Lum. In this illuminating conversation, Debbie offers some fascinating back story to deepen our understanding of the complex dynamics that play out on screen.
The Scenes:
Scene 1: Winter Holiday at Le Soleil Restaurant - 42:37 – 45:06
Scene 2: Chinese New Year at R&G Restaurant - 51:28 – 53:37
The Setup:
In these two scenes from the second half of the film, Debbie Lum and her crew tag along with Alvan, a seni...
2021-12-1622 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”The Rescue” with Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy ChinSometimes you think you know the full story when it turns out you really don’t know the half of it. Oscar-winning filmmakers E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s (“Free Solo”, “Meru”) riveting new documentary “The Rescue” chronicles the heroic international effort in the summer of 2018 to save twelve boys and their soccer coach trapped deep inside a flooded cave in Northern Thailand.
At the time, the Thai cave rescue story was a world-wide media sensation. But very little was known about what actually went on inside the cave, how the rescue was carried out, and the complex inte...
2021-12-1038 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”My Name is Pauli Murray” with Julie Cohen & Betsy West141 boxes. That’s a lot of stuff. But, if that “stuff” happens to be the Pauli Murray Papers at Harvard’s Schlesinger Library, then you may well have just struck documentary gold. Filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen first learned of Murray when they were in the throes of research for their Oscar-nominated documentary “RBG” about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Later, after immersing themselves in those archives (in addition to speaking to scholars and those who knew Murray), West and Cohen were amazed to learn how often this pathbreaking legal scholar and civil and women’s rights pioneer was ye...
2021-12-0851 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Try Harder!” with Debbie LumFor many 17- and 18-year-olds, life exists on the unsettling edge between the daily grind of high school and the promised land of freedom and opportunity: college. The brilliance of Debbie Lum’s enthralling new documentary “Try Harder!” is that it occupies the treacherous space in between these two worlds by focusing on the hyper competitive college application process. With an all-access pass to Lowell High School, San Francisco’s top-ranked public high school, “Try Harder!” profiles five endearing students (and their parents) who are struggling to make it through the process in one piece.
In this up-close-and...
2021-11-3046 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary FilmmakersAnatomy of a Scene from ”Rebel Hearts” with Pedro KosWant to know more about how one of our award-winning directors crafts a complex scene? For our inaugural “Anatomy of a Scene'' special segment, we invited “Rebel Hearts” director Pedro Kos to peel back the curtain on his filmmaking process by dissecting a pivotal scene from his new movie. It’s a fascinating “deep dive” that we know you will enjoy!
The Scene: The 1967 Immaculate Heart General Assembly
The nuns of the Immaculate Heart are determined to bring a progressive vision and more flexible practices into the daily life and mission of the monastery. But, when the Arc...
2021-11-3020 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Flee” with Jonas Poher RasmussenAlmost daily, the news media report on a new refugee crisis or a tragic border crossing attempted by those fleeing desperate circumstances in their home countries for the promise of a better life elsewhere. Danish filmmaker Jonas Poher Rasmussen takes the measure of one such story in his remarkable new documentary “Flee”, which gives a blow-by-blow, first-hand account of a young Afghan refugee named Amin who faces a perilous journey before finally making it safely to Denmark.
Jonas and Amin became friends in high school, but it was not until years later that Jonas had even the slig...
2021-11-2938 minTop Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers”Procession” with Robert GreeneMiscarriage of justice doesn’t begin to describe the wrongs that have been done to the six men at the heart of Robert Greene’s (“Bisbee ’17”, “Kate Plays Christine”) pathbreaking, searing, and, ultimately, immensely healing, new documentary “Procession”. As boys, Joe, Mike, Ed, Dan, Michael and Tom each suffered sexual abuse, including rape, at the hands of Catholic Church clergy. As men, their cases have been dismissed or ignored. Partnering with Greene, they have now taken matters into their own hands, co-creating staged scenes in order to reclaim the spaces where the abuse took place and to confront the trauma that has pl...
2021-11-2448 min