Your Source for Documentary News
Your Source for Documentary News
Spotlight
“Icarus” filmmakers respond to Russia’s Olympics ban for state-sponsored doping system
Source: IndieWire In an unprecedented move, the International Olympic Committee has banned Russia from the 2018 Winter Olympic Games. In December 2016, the I.O.C. began disciplinary proceedings against 28 athletes who represented Russia at the previous Winter...
“Chasing Coral” director is confident there will be a climate change solution: “We have no choice other than to solve it”
Source: IndieWire For a time, “Chasing Coral” director Jeff Orlowski was worried he wouldn’t actually be able to capture the climax of his film. “We weren’t capturing the bleaching and the cameras didn’t work,” he recently said. “We knew that, unfortunately for the...
“This Is Congo” director Daniel McCabe on telling the country’s real story
Source: TIME Photojournalist Daniel McCabe first went to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2008 to cover a series of armed rebellions that were tearing the country’s eastern regions apart. A chance encounter with a young, charismatic and potentially dangerous major...
“Oklahoma City” filmmakers say there’s a direct line between Timothy McVeigh and Charlottesville
Source: IndieWire The Oklahoma City bombing occurred more than 20 years ago, but it remains the worst act of domestic terrorism in America. “Oklahoma City” traces the interactions between law enforcement and fringe groups in Ruby Ridge and Waco that led to Timothy...
Filmmaker Joe Berlinger on Documenting 25 Years of True Crime
Source: HuffPost True crime documentaries are having a moment—and award-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger knows why. Berlinger has been making movies for more than 25 years. His films “Brother’s Keeper” (1992) and the Paradise Lost trilogy (1996-2011) helped pioneer...
Meet Violeta Ayala, the director who gave cameras to Bolivian inmates for “Cocaine Prison”
Source: Remezcla Amid the celebrity profile documentaries and high-profile biopics that dotted the landscape at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, Violeta Ayala’s "Cocaine Prison" was an extraordinary hunk of primary-source reporting: a documentary shot...
Director Brett Morgen talks about the transition from rock docs to his intimate portrait of Jane Goodall
Source: Film Journal International Jane Goodall may seem like a well-chronicled woman—after all, she’s written more than a dozen books and been the subject of numerous films. But documentary director Brett Morgen’s new National Geographic film "Jane" adds some...
An interview with Elaine McMillion Sheldon, director of opioid crisis doc “Heroin(e)”
Source: 100 Days in Appalachia Elaine McMillion Sheldon won a Peabody Award for her 2013 interactive documentary “Hollow,” which examines the future of rural America through the eyes and voices of McDowell County, West Virginia residents. McMillion Sheldon's latest,...
Inside the making of “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail” with director Steve James
Source: PBS Director Steve James is no stranger to telling the stories of people and communities facing challenging circumstances. Over the course of his decades-long career, the iconic documentary filmmaker behind "Hoop Dreams," "Life Itself," and "The Interrupters"...
“20 Feet from Stardom” director Morgan Neville shares how he got his start
Source: Peninsula Daily News Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville found his life’s work at a young age. Neville, Academy Award winner for "20 Feet from Stardom," was interviewed by actress and educator Akuyoe Graham at Port Townsend High School...
Oakland, California police documentary “The Force” is second film in director’s trilogy
Source: hoodline A new documentary opening this week offers a look inside one of the most tumultuous periods for the Oakland, California police department, including a period of intense protests, a string of deadly officer-involved shootings, and an explosive...
Director Greg Barker talks about capturing Obama’s last months in office
Source: Variety Greg Barker set out to make a thematic bookend to “The War Room” with “The Final Year,” a look at Barack Obama’s foreign policy team over their last 12 months in office. Whereas "The War Room," the 1993 documentary about Bill Clinton’s White House...
Errol Morris on Alternative Facts, CIA Coverups, and His New Netflix Series “Wormwood”
Source: Variety Errol Morris, the Oscar-winning director of “The Thin Blue Line” and “The Fog of War,” is back with the most formally daring project of his career, “Wormwood.” The six-part Netflix miniseries defies easy categorization. It is equal parts documentary...
Ron Howard on why he loves making documentaries
Source: Screen Daily Ron Howard’s documentary, "The Beatles: Eight Days A Week - The Touring Years," earned five Emmy nods including one for outstanding documentary. The director tells Screen Daily how documentary film has been a new creative outlet in his career,...
Meet the Broadway producer who directed one of the best documentaries of the year
Source: Playbill Among her theatre industry friends and colleagues, Amanda Lipitz is primarily known as a producer, with a Broadway résumé that includes "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels," "Legally Blonde The Musical," "The Performers," "A View From the Bridge," and...
How the “Cocaine Cowboys” filmmakers built a career interviewing Miami’s most notorious gangsters
Source: Business Insider Born and bred in Miami, Florida, director Billy Corben and producer Alfred Spellman grew up knowing a simple fact: their city has been, and will always be, a sunny place for shady people. Whether it’s the refuge for retired mafia kingpins of...
“Primal Screen” director Rodney Ascher brings childhood fears to life
Source: Miami New Times Director Rodney Ascher has made a career of exploring fascinating concepts via documentaries. His first feature, "Room 237," was all about a variety of interpretations that obsessed fans found in Stanley Kubrick’s "The Shining." His second,...
Netflix’s “The Keepers” director Ryan White on unburying institutional injustice
Source: Deadline When "The Keepers" debuted on Netflix in May, it was instantly linked to another of the streaming services’ true-crime documentary series: "Making a Murderer." Another haunting story of institutional injustice, director Ryan White’s seven-part...
How a filmmaker uncovered the biggest doping scandal in Olympics history
Source: Business Insider Bryan Fogel became one of the biggest success stories at Sundance in 2017 when his doping scandal documentary “Icarus” sold to Netflix for a staggering $5 million (unheard of for a documentary sale). But his journey actually goes back 14...
How filmmaker Jeff Skoll is fighting climate change in the Trump era
Source: CBC In the past decade, many of "An Inconvenient Truth's" ominous predictions about the consequences of climate change have come to pass. But for Jeff Skoll, it wasn't dire warnings but rather optimism and the opportunity to empower today's audiences that...