Doc Walks

Come along as Ben flies solo—no Keith, just the UT campus and two documentary titans who've been making films together longer than most marriages last: the indomitable Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker have a working partnership runnin' north of fifty years. They made AMERICAN TONGUES (1988) back when folks across the US said they just spoke like everyone else. They made PEOPLE LIKE US (1999) while...

Consider this your midnight toast to new beginnings—we're popping the cork on our Sundance episode just in time for the calendar reset. As 2024 turns to 2025, we're grateful for the documentary community that keeps showing up, keeps creating, and keeps walking these festival streets in search of collaborators, inspiration, and maybe a free hot cocoa. So grab a glass of whatever you're having, bund...

Consider this a favorite re-wrapped Christmas gift just for you—Matt Wolf's PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF documentary is streaming now on HBO, reminding us all that the best presents are the ones that make us feel like kids again. This holiday season we're celebrating filmmakers who find magic in obsession and who build their own creative communities one passion project at a time. So pour yourself some eggno...

As we close-out of our first year of doc'in & walkin' it's time to take stock in what this podcast is all about. We're excited to welcome self-proclaimed number one fan and Australian-born doc-maker, Sally O'Grady for a year-end, Year in Review episode. This nature-walk snakes through the wilderness behind Sally's North Austin home as Ben intros us to a game of "High, Low, Buffalo, Mitzvah" (a Ste...

What is it with all the doc-filmmakers turning to podcasting?!? No, not us… we're talkin' about David Modigliani—a playwright turned poet turned documentary filmmaker turned podcaster (and Stanley Tucci voice director). This is a fun walk with an old friend at a park rumored to be populated by peacocks! The director of 2008's CRAWFORD (about a small town invaded by George W. Bush) and 2019's RUNNI...

Keith's out this week, so Ben is strutting Travis Heights solo with his good pal Scott(y) Ballew. Scott's a lesson in cutting-against the grain and getting more for it. You might know him from his work as the former Head of Content at Yeti, making 100+ branded docs with one rule: no product placement. Scott's path is pure chaos theory - starting with a UT football national championship ring, spend...

Consider this your second helping of the holiday—Charlie Shackleton's THE ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT is now playing in theaters, which means audiences can now experience one of the most twisted, brightest docs of the year. This thanksgiving we're grateful for filmmakers who take big swings and for audiences who show up to support adventurous storytelling. So grab another slice of pie, settle in, and re...

Thanksgiving is here and we're thankful for the filmmakers who make our home town of Austin, TX weird and wonderful. So this week, we're serving up a heaping helping of gratitude and indulging in a re-release of one of our favorite community episodes, EP09 - THE WATERING HOLE, LIVE FROM THE AUSTIN FILM SOCIETY. We recorded this one during SXSW at the annual Austin Film Society party. We're gratefu...

Join Ben as he walks solo with Patrick Heaphy—a New York producer/director and music doc extraordinaire. Together they saunter across South Congress, past the Continental Club to Arlyn Studios. Pat's the filmmaker behind CHARLEY CROCKETT: $10 COWBOY documentary—now screening at Austin Film Festival—but his career path runs through a Nancy Kerrigan vampire clip (the lav accessory, of course), the 1...

Meet Rena Effendi—National Geographic photographer, and first-time filmmaker whose SEARCHING FOR SATYRUS just won the top doc prize at the Austin Film Festival. This walk is pure magic—seemingly in honor of her butterfly-hunting film, monarch butterflies flit all around us like they know something the rest of us don't. Rena's film traces her hunt for one of the world's rarest butterflies, named af...

We've been trying to book this walk with director Chelsea Hernandez for weeks, but she's just too-busy city-hopping for the PBS music doc-series to hit the trail with us—until now. Chelsea is an Emmy-nominated director, a part of the Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and a great friend!   On a return from a recent shoot in Puerto Rico for CITY OF SONGS, Chelsea found that her living room ceiling had collapse...

Keith wanders LA's Atwater Village with acclaimed producer Megan Gilbride—a co-conspirator on TOWER, A SONG FOR YOU, and DEAR MR. BRODY. We stroll the neighborhood, two old friends and frequent collaborators, outlining just how Megan's the "producer kind of crazy" and not the "director kind of crazy." Megan's got theories and she has opinions—and she's got the experience to back them all up. This...

Welcome to Austin Studios, the airport-turned-soundstages located at the intersection of Austin Film Society and Richard Linklater's Detour Filmproductions… and who better to catch on the backlot than Mike Blizzard? A producer known for APOLLO 10½, HIT MAN, and this month's BLUE MOON, all made with longtime collaborator Richard Linklater, Mike takes us through the old airport hangars where MISS CO...

We're wandering through a mystery neighborhood (we don't know the name) with Alex Ross Perry, who has TWO movies screening in Austin on the same day. Here to promote his 10-year passion project VIDEO HEAVEN—an essay film about video stores screening at Austin Film Society, and his part of the omnibus VHS series at Fantastic Fest, Alex has built up a fair amount of cred since 2014's LISTEN UP, PHIL...

This week we're roaming from Go-Valley (the production compound) thru Govalle (the neighborhood) with Marfa, TX-based filmmaker Hillary Pierce, a producing force behind Ben Masters' THE RIVER AND THE WALL, and Maisie Crow's AT THE READY.. Hillary's path involves assisting the legendary Albert Maysles in New York (yes, he ate her leftovers), looping back to Austin, and then simultaneously working o...

Ben crashes the Matt and Bob show to talk WINNEBAGO MAN, viral videos before viral was a thing, and tracking down an angry RV salesman living as a hermit in Northern California. The conversation rips through documentary evolution—from Ken Burns photo zooms to Tiger King (quick: who directed it? exactly)—and lands on why docs are the offensive linemen of film: you don't know their names, but you ne...

This one is pure gold! Join Ben on a solo walk with the legendary Maureen Gosling—a prolific documentary editor and director, and a longtime collaborator of Les Blank. Dig into the makings-of iconic films like SPROUT WINGS AND FLY, GAP-TOOTHED WOMEN and BURDEN OF DREAMS, and explore Maureen's latest work, THE NINE LIVES OF BARBARA DANE. We dive deep into the fascinating twists and turns of Maureen...

A walk down docu-memory lane as we welcome Ben's early filmmaking collaborator, roommate, and mentor Bradley Beesley…. A prolific and adventure-prone docmaker, Bradley's created acclaimed docs OKIE NOODLING 1 & 2, FEARLESS FREAKS, and SWEETHEARTS OF THE PRISON RODEO—among others. This walk takes us through Brad & Ben's old neighborhood, with a stop in front of the house they shared in French Place...

Summer's done and Fall is Falling as we (Keith & Ben) check in with each other about the state of our respective projects and how we go from development to production (fingers crossed). We don't have the answers, but we each have our approaches to deck-creation, sizzle reel sizzling, pitching & fundraising, all to get into the 'making' part of filmmaking. Ben shares details about his doc project D...

Two-time Sundance winner Reid Davenport is in town with his new film LIFE AFTER. We were excited to book time with Reid and his producer Colleen Cassingham for a  sit-down with Keith at the Austin Film Society Cinema. Reid shares the story behind what drew him to telling this complex story about the issues attached to state sanctioned assisted suicide and talks about his early filmmaking days wher...

It's a sobering summer day in Austin as we invite the Austin Chronicle's  Richard Whittaker out for a walk. Fresh off the presses, Richard has researched and written a story that details the ramifications of the recent defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the impact that this move has on independent documentaries. We get into it, talking up the history and significance of PBS a...

We talk a lot about mentorship on this podcast—so it makes sense that we'd bring a pivotal mentor to both of us into the mix. Join us as we find a shady spot on the campus of the University of Texas as DocWalks becomes DocTalks with Dr. Paul Stekler. We'll get into Paul's POV from many angles—from his days as a Harvard PhD, to his filmmaking roots in New Orleans, through his role as the chair of t...

This week we're breaking out of the non-fiction world to talk fictionalization with Oscar-nominated writer/director Greg Kwedar. Fresh off the awards trail with last year's SING SING, Greg shares insights and ideas about turning documentary style research into based-on-a-true-story truth. It's a light-hearted walk through Hyde Park, with another stop at a shady creek, as we dig into Greg's approac...

Take a stroll with Reed Harkness, Portland-based creator behind SAM NOW, a creative portrait that follows the journey of the Harkness brothers, Reed and Sam, as they search for Sam's mother who mysteriously disappeared in the year 2000. This walk mirrors Reed's film, becoming a moving and unexpectedly epic conversation about family, loss, and long-haul filmmaking. This one takes us off the trail,...

After 15 DocWalks Keith & Ben take a look back. Where did we start, where are we going? Walk with us as we discuss the evolution of the podcast, highlighting some highs and glossing-over some lows along the way. In addition to all that, we talk (as always) about changes in the film industry, notably Texas' new film incentives, and share some enthusiasm for upcoming episodes, including deep dives i...