Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers
200 episodes - English - Latest episode: 19 days ago -Mike and Ken talk to award-winning documentary filmmakers about their art, their subjects, and their process.
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Episodes
"STAX: Soulsville, U.S.A." with Jamila Wignot
June 17, 2024 10:05 - 42 minutes - 38.5 MBIn the 1960s and 1970s, the Memphis sound was everywhere: Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes — the list goes on. Not only did the Memphis sound (a.k.a. Memphis soul) bring an amazing range of musical talent to the world, it also shined a light on the unsung city of Memphis, Tennessee and on a remarkable record company called Stax Records. In her expansive HBO docuseries “STAX: Soulsville, U.S.A.”, director Jamila Wignot (“Ailey”) goes inside the recording studio and widens...
"Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Gay New York" with Anthony Caronna & Howard Gertler
June 14, 2024 10:00 - 30 minutes - 28.1 MBIn the early 1990s, a serial killer stalked his victims not by slipping into houses under cover of darkness or by abducting victims from isolated highway rest stops, but rather by haunting crowded, lively gay bars in Manhattan–he even interacted with others in these bars, sometimes the very friends of his victims. What makes “Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York” so compelling is the way director Anthony Caronna and executive producer Howard Gertler bring to bear a...
"Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York" with Anthony Caronna & Howard Gertler
June 14, 2024 10:00 - 30 minutes - 28.1 MBIn the early 1990s, a serial killer stalked his victims not by slipping into houses under cover of darkness or by abducting victims from isolated highway rest stops, but rather by haunting crowded, lively gay bars in Manhattan–he even interacted with others in these bars, sometimes the very friends of his victims. What makes “Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York” so compelling is the way director Anthony Caronna and executive producer Howard Gertler bring to bear a...
"Our Planet II" with Huh Cordey
June 11, 2024 09:54 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBSir David Attenborough’s still got it. As he proves in Netflix’s extraordinary nature series “Our Planet II”, the 98-year-old legendary British biologist, natural historian, narrator, and writer remains one of the documentary world’s great talents. Joining Mike and Ken on the pod, “Our Planet II" Series Producer Huw Cordey discusses the ins-and-outs of collaborating with narrator Sir David and the tremendous challenges of this mind-blowing nature series. Picking up where Our Planet left ...
"Our Planet II" with Huw Cordey
June 11, 2024 09:54 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBSir David Attenborough’s still got it. As he proves in Netflix’s extraordinary nature series “Our Planet II”, the 98-year-old legendary British biologist, natural historian, narrator, and writer remains one of the documentary world’s great talents. Joining Mike and Ken on the pod, “Our Planet II" Series Producer Huw Cordey discusses the ins-and-outs of collaborating with narrator Sir David and the tremendous challenges of this mind-blowing nature series. Picking up where Our Planet left ...
"American Nightmare" with Felicity Morris & Bernadette Higgins
June 04, 2024 10:52 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MBIn 2015, a young California couple, Aaron Quinn and Denise Huskins, was awakened by a home invasion, drugged, and blindfolded; Denise was kidnapped. But that isn’t the only disturbing horror at the heart of the harrowing Netflix docuseries “American Nightmare”. Sensitively and imaginatively directed by Felicity Morris and Bernadette Higgins (“The Tinder Swindler”), this true crime drama focuses as much on the local police department’s disturbing disregard for the couple, and for the facts of...
"Power" with Yance Ford
May 30, 2024 15:25 - 30 minutes - 28 MBYance Ford’s voice is key to his new documentary on Netflix, so here’s how he describes “Power”: “Driven to contain threats to social order, American policing has exploded in scope and scale over hundreds of years. Now it can be described by one word: ‘Power’”. Yance’s narrative is deeply rooted in a historical analysis of the roots of American policing–Indian removal, slave patrol, the anti-Labor municipal police of the 18th and 19th centuries; in his analysis, all driven by the protec...
"Albert Brooks: Defending My Life" with Rob Reiner
May 27, 2024 17:09 - 33 minutes - 30.8 MBAlready famous as an actor, Rob Reiner made his directorial debut in 1984 with the landmark mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap”, which kicked off a new subgenre and inspired countless references to turning the knob “up to 11.” But, it has taken 40 years for the legendary creative hyphenate (director of “Stand by Me”, “When Harry Met Sally”, “A Few Good Men” and many more) to direct his first “real” documentary, “Albert Brooks: Defending My Life”, a loving embrace of his lifelong friend, the co...
Classic: "Dick Johnson is Dead" with Kirsten ("KJ") Johnson (from October 2021)
May 16, 2024 10:32 - 1 hour - 57.5 MBWhile we gear up for Season 4 of "Top Doc", we're sharing some of our favorite episodes of the past few years. Today, we re-present a pod from October of 2021. Ken and Mike welcome Kirsten (KJ) Johnson, who recently won Best Director for her groundbreaking film, "Dick Johnson is Dead." This film is like no other film you’ll find in your Netflix queue. KJ’s boundary-pushing documentary uses the art of cinema to keep the ravages of time and the onset of dementia from taking her beloved fa...
Classic: "Summer of Soul" with Amir "Questlove" Thompson (from January 2022)
May 09, 2024 16:00 - 58 minutes - 53.5 MBWhile we gear up for Season 4, we are sharing some of our favorite shows from the past few years. Next up is "Summer of Soul", and our interview with director Amir "Questlove" Thompson. Since we first aired this show in January of 2022, the film went on to win the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Ahmir “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 ...
Classic: "Navalny" with Daniel Roher (from September 2022)
May 02, 2024 10:34 - 51 minutes - 47.1 MBWhile we gear up for Season 4, we thought we'd replay some of our favorite shows from the past few years. Today, we’re presenting again our interview from September of 2022 with Daniel Roher regarding his film, Navalny, which depicts the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Since then, the film won the Academy Award for best Documentary. Despite the attention brought by the film, in February of this year, Alexei Navalny died in the prison in which Vladimir Putin had confined him. ...
Our Most Popular Pods, Season 3
April 25, 2024 10:25 - 33 minutes - 30.6 MBTo finish out Season 3, we're revisiting some telling moments from three of our most popular shows of the season: Laura McGann, "The Deepest Breath" Anna Hints, "Smoke Sauna Sisterhood" Fisher Stevens, "Beckham" The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.
"The Greatest Night in Pop" with Bao Nguyen
April 11, 2024 10:26 - 42 minutes - 39.3 MB“Check Your Ego at the Door”. Those words were scrawled on a piece of paper and taped to the door of A&M Studios on the night of January 28, 1985. The story behind that command is the subject of director Bao Nguyen’s (“Be Water”) thoroughly captivating new Netflix documentary “The Greatest Night in Pop” about the once-in-a-lifetime event that drew dozens of the world’s biggest pop stars together on one night to record what would become the ‘80s phenomenon “We Are the World”. Bao joins Ke...
"Girls State" with Amanda McBaine & Jesse Moss
April 04, 2024 10:32 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBSo much for campfire singalongs and Capture the Flag. Directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss once again plunge into the world of summer camp for young politicians-in-training with “Girls State”, a riveting and exhilarating follow up to their Emmy Award-winning 2020 documentary “Boys State.” The comparisons may be inevitable, but “Girls State” forges its own path with memorable characters, a compelling narrative arc and richly layered themes. Joining Ken on the pod, Amanda and Jesse disc...
"Anxious Nation" with Laura Morton & Vanessa Roth
March 26, 2024 10:15 - 38 minutes - 35.6 MBMany of the issues that plagued the young people of America decades ago–binge drinking, drunken driving, teenage pregnancy, smoking, to name a few–have greatly declined in significance. But in their place we have witnessed a seemingly ever-deepening mental health crisis amongst our youth, one partly rooted, as our guests tell us, in a rise of anxiety. The directors of “Anxious Nation,” Laura Morton and Vanessa Roth, join Mike to explain how their own family experiences drove them to eng...
"Reality Winner" with Sonia Kennebeck
March 19, 2024 10:35 - 44 minutes - 40.8 MBHow much do you really know about Reality Winner, the veteran and NSA contractor who shared a document regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election with “The Intercept”, and then subsequently served several years in Federal prison as a consequence? Sonia Kennebeck’s (Enemies of the State, National Bird) “Reality Winner” melds a host of timelines–before the arrest & after; during the FBI interrogation in her home; from the viewpoint of family as well as others who have bucked the...
Oscar Nominees Special with Clayton Davis
March 05, 2024 11:15 - 34 minutes - 31.5 MBJoining us for the third year in a row, Variety’s Senior Awards Editor Clayton Davis breaks down this year’s Oscar races for Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short and offers his predictions for who will be victorious at the 96th Academy Awards on March 10th. With the feature doc category taking on a very international flavor this year, what does Clayton think of how the process unfolded from the shortlist to the nominations? How might Netflix’s late acquisition of “To Kill a Ti...
"Daughters" with Angela Patton & Natalie Rae
February 29, 2024 11:52 - 26 minutes - 24.1 MBWe’ve saved the last of our live, in-person interviews at Sundance 2024 for the winners of the Sundance U.S. Documentary Competition Audience Award and overall Festival Favorite, the incredibly moving, tear-jerking, and, hopefully, policy-shifting documentary “Daughters”. Directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae join Ken to discuss their world premiere screening and the life-changing organization “Girls For a Change” that Angela founded. Over the course of the film, we meet Lashawn (5), D...
"To Kill a Tiger" with Nisha Pahuja
February 25, 2024 20:22 - 22 minutes - 20.7 MBWhen Ranjit and his family turn to the Indian legal system to seek justice for his daughter who had been raped by three local young men, they face not only daunting odds from the system but deep resistance from their village. Nisha Pahuja’s Academy Award-nominated film “To Kill a Tiger” traces the profound tension Ranjit experiences: on the one side is the promise of recent national legislation that empowers children who have been sexually assaulted; on the other are the restrictions o...
"Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó (Grandma & Grandma)" with Sean Wang
February 22, 2024 11:25 - 13 minutes - 12.7 MBContinuing our coverage of Academy Award-nominated shorts, Mike speaks with Sean Wang about his loving tribute to his grandmothers. As he describes the film: “Nǎi Nai is my grandma. Wài Pó is my grandma. Together they are a grandma super team that dances, stretches, and farts their sorrows away.” Despite its seeming insularity, and its general mood of fun and mischief, the film opens up to become as well a profound meditation on mortality. You can watch “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó (Grandma & Gr...
"The Last Repair Shop" with Kris Bowers & Ben Proudfoot
February 21, 2024 11:26 - 27 minutes - 24.7 MBContinuing our coverage of Academy Award-nominated shorts, Mike speaks with Kris Bowers (previously nominated for “A Concerto is a Conversation”) and Ben Proudfoot (an Academy-Award winner for “The Queen of Basketball”) , directors of “The Last Repair Shop”. The film sketches the stories–both representative of the Los Angeles workforce, as well as fascinating in their own right–of 4 repair workers who fix the instruments of students from the LAUSD. Lyrical in presentation, and sympho...
“Island in Between” with S. Leo Chiang & Jean Tsien
February 20, 2024 11:04 - 32 minutes - 29.4 MBThe island of Kinmen is a small island with a potentially big problem. Situated just off the coast of China, but part of Taiwan, Kinmen would likely be the first line of defense should the Chinese government decide to invade Taiwan. Emmy-nominated director S. Leo Chiang, who was born in Taiwan, worked in China and also lived for years in the U.S., explores the complex relationship between place, identity and politics in his insightful and masterfully crafted documentary short “Island in Betw...
"The Barber of Little Rock" with John Hoffman
February 15, 2024 11:50 - 31 minutes - 28.4 MBThe fact that Arlo Washington, featured as the main protagonist in John Hoffman and Christine Turner’s inspiring documentary “The Barber of Little Rock”, is, indeed, a barber is almost beside the point. From owning one and then multiple barber shops, to founding the Washington Barber College and starting People Trust Credit Union, the first minority-owned financial institution in Arkansas, Arlo is a force of nature. He’s always thinking of new ways to address issues of equity in the Black co...
"The ABCs of Book Banning" with Trish Adlesic
February 13, 2024 11:18 - 21 minutes - 19.9 MBA children’s book about Rosa Parks. A graphic adaptation of “The Diary of Anne Frank”. A Pulitzer Prize-winning book by a Nobel Laureate. These are but a few of the books that have been restricted, challenged, and banned in dozens of states across the U.S. In the new documentary “The ABCs of Book Banning” (directed by Sheila Nevins, produced and co-directed by Trish Adlesic, and co-directed by Nazenet Habtezghi), the filmmakers go to the source: a fourth grade class in Jacksonville, FL to he...
"Porcelain War" with Slava Leontyev & Brendan Bellomo
February 08, 2024 11:24 - 19 minutes - 18.1 MBToward the end of this year’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary “Porcelain War”, one of the directors and main subjects of the film, Slava Leontyev, says, “Ukraine is like porcelain. Easy to break but impossible to destroy.” Slava, along with his wife, Anya, create beautifully crafted “porcelain beasts” that used to be their main professional focus. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Slava has served with the Ukrainian Special Forces and Anya dodges landmines in the fields near ...
"Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza" with Michael John Warren
February 06, 2024 11:29Siouxsie and the Banshees. Ice-T. Nine Inch Nails. All were on the slated for the first Lollapalooza lineup in 1991. But as Michael John Warren, director of the new 3-part Paramount+ series “Lolla: The Story of Lollapalooza,” tells us in our live interview at Sundance, his account of the history of the festival–first intended as a goodbye tour for Jane’s Addiction–is more than a trip down memory lane for Gen X. The festival, he explains, pulled together a number of threads from the ...
"Union" with Brett Story, Stephen Maing & Chris Smalls
February 01, 2024 11:03 - 14 minutes - 13 MBIn the second of our live, in-person interviews at Sundance 2024, award-winning directors Brett Story (“The Prison Landscape in Twelve Landscapes”) and Stephen Maing (“Crime + Punishment”), along with Amazon Labor Union (ALU) president Chris Smalls, the film’s main protagonist, join Ken to discuss the world premiere of “Union”. In this riveting, verité documentary, we meet Chris and other current and former employees inside a tent (ALU’s makeshift HQ), as they form an independent, grassr...
"Sugarcane" with Julian Brave Noisecat & Emily Kassie
January 29, 2024 11:08 - 25 minutes - 22.9 MBKicking off our on-the-ground coverage of Sundance 2024, Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassie join Mike to discuss their new film, “Sugarcane”. In this film, they explore the legacy of the St. Joseph Mission, one of many segregated residential schools promulgated by the Canadian government and run by the Catholic Church. The stories they tell are deeply personal (Julian’s grandmother attended the school, and his father was born there) as well illustrative of a wider history of abuse...
”Four Daughters” with Kaouther Ben Hania
January 14, 2024 10:26 - 31 minutes - 28.9 MBMixing the traditional documentary form with elements of Brechtian theatre, director Kaouther Ben Hania’s (“The Man Who Sold His Skin, “Beauty and the Dogs”) Cannes-winning “Four Daughters” creates a highly intense and emotional experience — for both the audience and the principal characters. Joining Ken on the pod, Kaouther discusses the challenges and breakthroughs of her hybrid approach. In the film, actors play various roles and intermingle with the “real” sisters and mother in a Tun...
”Stamped from the Beginning” with Roger Ross Williams
January 13, 2024 18:03 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MBIn his vivid, pulsating new documentary, Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams (“Music by Prudence”; “Life, Animated”) puts his own creative stamp on Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s best-selling book “Stamped from the Beginning” about the history of racist ideas in America. Joining Ken on the pod, Roger describes how the racial reckoning of 2020 inspired him to make a film version of “Stamped”. What were the keys to unlocking the film’s vibrant visual aesthetic and dynamic editing style? How d...
Sundance 2024 Documentary Lineup Review with Basil Tsiokos
January 11, 2024 11:15 - 42 minutes - 39 MBThe Sundance Film Festival marks its 40th edition on January 18 - 28. To help get us ready for the big event, Basil Tsiokos, Sundance Senior Programmer, Nonfiction, makes his third visit to “Top Docs” to preview this year’s sure-to-be-killer documentary lineup. As the first Sundance under new Festival Director Eugene Hernandez, what are the new wrinkles of this year’s fest? What are some of the doc standouts and special treats? Check out our annual January “Top Docs” Sundance preview special...
”32 Sounds” with Sam Green
January 09, 2024 11:10 - 39 minutes - 36.6 MBNot just a movie about sound, but an interactive feast for the senses, “32 Sounds” is the latest in filmmaker Sam Green’s (“The Weather Underground”, “A Thousand Thoughts”) unique “live” documentaries. Inspired by the great 1993 film “Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould”, the film delivers a heightened sensorial experience through an incredibly wide array of interviews, original footage, archival material and, of course, sounds. Joining Ken on the pod, Sam goes deep inside his own c...
”Apolonia, Apolonia” with Lea Glob
January 04, 2024 11:00 - 44 minutes - 40.8 MBSurrounded by a Bohemian cast of characters, she was conceived and grew up in an avant-garde theater in Paris; she aspired to be a painter. What could be more romantic than that? In “Apolonia, Apolonia”, director Lea Glob’s epic and fascinating portrait of Apolonia Sokol, romantic ideals intermingle with the hard realities of what it takes for a talented young woman without a trust fund or family connections to make it in the art world. Joining Ken on the pod, Lea describes how, as a Da...
”Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy” with Susan Margolin & Simon Kilmurry
January 02, 2024 11:08 - 40 minutes - 36.7 MBThe only movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture with an X rating, “Midnight Cowboy” is one of those movies that once you see it, you never forget it. It broke taboos and made American movies relevant again; it both reflected the changing times and was revolutionary. And it had Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman in the indelible roles of Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo. The late Nancy Buirski’s final film, “Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy”, masterfully captures the ex...
”Art for Everybody” with Miranda Yousef
December 28, 2023 11:02 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBThis holiday season, discover another side to “The Painter of Light”! In our final installment of "Live from Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival", Miranda Yousef joins Mike to discuss her feature documentary, “Art for Everybody”. From an early age, Thomas Kinkade struggled with the impact of his impoverished youth, torn between emulating van Gogh’s critical regard and seeking the economic success of a Norman Rockwell or Walt Disney. As Yousef explains, turning himself into a successful ...
Oscar Shortlist 2024 Breakdown with Anne Thompson
December 26, 2023 11:15 - 40 minutes - 36.8 MBWelcome to the Anne-ual Top Docs Holiday Special featuring the one-and-only Anne Thompson, Editor-at-Large at IndieWire! Anne joins Mike and Ken to tackle this year’s Best Feature Documentary Oscar Shortlist, released on December 21st. One day following the release of the list, Anne is already fired up and ready to go. How competitive is this year’s race? Who are the Frontrunners, Runners Up and Dark Horses? Which film will win it all? Park yourself in front of a roaring fire and pop in thos...
Emmy Nominations Breakdown with Scott Feinberg
December 19, 2023 00:39 - 43 minutes - 39.9 MBIt’s Emmy time. Yes, finally, after a long delay, the Emmys are almost here. “The Hollywood Reporter”’s Executive Editor of Awards Scott Feinberg joins Mike and Ken to break down the 2023 Emmy nominees in all the major documentary categories, including Outstanding Documentary Program; Outstanding Series; Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking; and Outstanding Directing. Besides his Emmy predictions, Scott also weighs in on all the early documentary Oscar buzz. The 2023 Creative Arts Emm...
”Little Richard: I am Everything” with Lisa Cortés
December 14, 2023 11:24 - 39 minutes - 36.2 MBDirector Lisa Cortés’ (“The Remix: Hip Hop X Fashion”, “Invisible Beauty”) electrifying and groundbreaking documentary about Richard Penniman (aka “Little Richard”) proves the point that the stories passed down about the origins of rock and roll have been whitewashed. The so-called “Architect of rock and roll”, Little Richard was ripped off, copied, and otherwise taken for granted by a white music establishment all too eager to embrace the likes of Elvis Presley, The Beatles, and the Rolling...
”American Symphony” with Matthew Heineman
December 12, 2023 11:17 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBOne is a beloved bandleader and soon-to-be Grammy nominee; the other, a “New York Times” bestselling author. But, as Matthew Heineman’s (“Retrograde”, “The First Wave”, “Cartel Land”) intimate and heartfelt new documentary “American Symphony” makes clear, life is not always so glittering for high-profile couple Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad. Batiste must consider the possibility that his ambitious “American Symphony” may be beyond his creative capabilities just as Jaouad confronts a life-th...
”Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” with Anna Hints
December 07, 2023 11:05 - 41 minutes - 38.4 MBBuilding on the smoke sauna tradition of Southern Estonia (included by UNESCO on its “Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity”), filmmaker Anna Hints brings together a group of Estonian women to share the smoke sauna experience and to share some of their most personal stories. The result is Anna’s masterfully constructed and emotionally layered Sundance award-winning documentary “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood”. Joining Ken on the pod, Anna discusses how she conceived...
”Anselm” with Wim Wenders
December 05, 2023 11:03 - 44 minutes - 40.3 MBBoth were born in 1945 in Germany during the last year of WWII. Both became giants of the modern German art movement: Anselm Kiefer as a painter and sculptor; Wim Wenders as a filmmaker whose landmark films include “Wings of Desire”, “Paris, Texas” and “The American Friend”. The two had met in 1991 and discussed the possibility of doing a film together, but it wasn’t until the two collaborated on Wenders’ new 3-D documentary “Anselm” that the stars were finally aligned. Joining Ken on th...
”Between Life and Death: Terri Schiavo’s Story” with Amanda Spain & Alex Waterfield
December 03, 2023 11:07 - 27 minutes - 25.5 MBIn 1990, at the age of 26, in the wake of a heart attack which, in the words of one expert, “liquified” the core of her brain, Terri Schiavo entered a “persistent vegetative state”. As “Between Life and Death: Terri Schiavo’s Story” shows, over the next 15 years her husband Michael and her immediate family would fight over her fate: in the press, in the courts, in legislatures, and ultimately in the office of the President of the United States. Mike spoke with Executive Producers Amanda...
”Beyond Utopia” with Madeleine Gavin
November 27, 2023 11:49 - 41 minutes - 38 MBLike a black hole, North Korea is a place where light cannot escape. Fed nothing but government propaganda, North Koreans can only access the outside world by slipping across the border to China, the first stop on a harrowing journey that, if successful, eventually leads to South Korea. Against this bleak backdrop, filmmaker Madeleine Gavin’s gripping Sundance-winning documentary “Beyond Utopia” spotlights the stories of two North Korean families and their courageous struggles for freedom. ...
”High on the Hog”, Season 2 with Karis Jagger & Fabienne Toback
November 21, 2023 11:22 - 31 minutes - 29.2 MBThe second season of Netflix’s “High on the Hog” is almost here, and Executive Producers Karis Jagger and Fabienne Toback joined Mike to discuss their celebrated series. The subtitle of the series is “How African-American Cuisine Transformed America” and much like the strong first season, the show explores the impact of Black Cuisine on American culture, economics, politics, and more. Mike asks Karis and Fabienne how it’s possible that this season is even more chock-full of ideas, and...
”A Town Called Victoria” with Li Lu
November 09, 2023 15:00 - 15 minutes - 14.5 MBAs the first of our series of conversations from the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, Mike spoke with Li Lu about her new 3-part series, “A Town Called Victoria”. The film explores the aftermath of a mosque burning in this small Texas town. Lu provides a nuanced portrait of the town itself, one torn between support for and fear of the victims, a divide that builds upon and reveals the racial, religious, and economic fissures that had long laid beneath the town’s placid surface. And ...
”Sly” with Thom Zimny
October 31, 2023 09:06 - 37 minutes - 34 MBThere’s nothing “sly” about Sylvester Stallone. His iconic screen characters, most notably, Rocky Balboa (“Rocky” and four others) and John Rambo (“Rambo: First Blood” + four others), are about as direct as they come — and, seemingly, so, too, is their creator. But, Emmy award-winning director Thom Zimny (“Bruce Springsteen: Wings for Wheels: The Making of ‘Born to Run’”) reveals that, even as Stallone was becoming famous for making some of the most successful films of all time, as a filmmak...
”The Pigeon Tunnel” with Errol Morris
October 24, 2023 13:06 - 28 minutes - 26.1 MBIn “The Pigeon Tunnel”, Errol Morris has crafted a career-culminating work. Morris skillfully deploys and redeploys: the revelatory recreations that he has been known for since “The Thin Blue Line”; an interview with a slippery subject that surpasses that even of “The Fog of War” subject Robert McNamara; and the intellectual curiosity on display in “Fast, Cheap, & Out of Control.” He sharpens them all, reflects back on them, and yet throws it all into the pale of “productive ontological u...
”Big Vape” with R.J. Cutler
October 19, 2023 17:11 - 40 minutes - 37.5 MBTwo young, idealistic, talented design students from Stanford set out to create a replacement for smoking tobacco, a vaporizing device that will save millions of lives. Instead, they end up building the perfect addiction machine, and, with their wildly effective marketing campaign, they hook a plethora of non-smokers, including teenagers. RJ Cutler (“The War Room”, “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry”) speaks with Mike about his new 4-part documentary series on Netflix, “Big Vap...
”The Mission” with Amanda McBaine & Jesse Moss
October 17, 2023 10:46 - 35 minutes - 32.3 MBInspired by the adventures stories of his youth as well as a “radical” interpretation of Jesus’ “Great Commision” , 26-year-old American John Chau set off to the distant North Sentinel Island to tell the people there–supposedly completely isolated and putatively unfriendly to visitors–of his Savior. Directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss (Boys State) join Mike to discuss not only what drove John, but who enabled him like “Pastor Bobby” and the evangelizing group All Nations. And they...
”Beckham” with Fisher Stevens
October 10, 2023 17:24 - 36 minutes - 33.7 MBFrom the opening moments when David Beckham strolls through a country field wearing a beekeeper’s outfit, you know you’ll be witnessing another side to one of the world’s most famous people. In “Beckham”, a 4-part series on Netflix, director Fisher Stevens (producer of “The Cove” and “Tiger King”, and an actor on stage and screen for 40 years, most recently playing Hugo Baker on “Succession”) reveals the life and career of a man whom he says has a unique disposition: Craving love, but det...