Doc Talk: A Deadline and Nō Studios Podcast

We're joined by several filmmakers hoping to earn an Oscar nomination for their documentary features: Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman, directors of The Alabama Solution; David Borenstein, director of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, and Richard Ladkani, director of Yanuni. In the Yanuni segment, we'll also speak with the producer and protagonist of the film, Brazilian Indigenous activist Juma Xipaia...

We explore three shortlisted documentaries: from Come See Me in the Good Light, director Ryan White joins us; director Amber Fares of Coexistence, My Ass! visits Doc Talk studios with the protagonist of her film, Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi; and from the short documentary We Were the Scenery, we welcome director Christopher Radcliff. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/a...

Hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey dissect the documentary shortlists for the 98th Academy Awards. There were major snubs (a NatGeo darling and a celebrity-oriented HBO doc) — and surprising inclusions (numerous films without U.S. distribution). Oscar winner Ridley (12 Years a Slave) gets into the documentaries that should have made the cut but didn't. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megapho...

Filmmakers Victor Kossakofsky and Lynne Sachs join us for a conversation about their latest documentaries, which premiered at IDFA. Kossakovsky's Trillion unfolds in lustrous black and white, without dialogue. Sachs' film, Every Contact Leaves a Trace, begins with her going through a stack of 600 business cards she has collected over decades, and reveals what happens when she reaches out to some o...

We report from the 41st Annual IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles, speaking with newly-minted winners as they come off stage. Joining us are Tamara Kotevska (The Tale of Silyan); Petra Costa and Alessandra Orofino (Apocalypse in the Tropics); Brittany Shyne (Seeds); Alex Megaro (WTO/99), and Jenny Raskin of Impact Partners (winner of the IDA's Pioneer Award). We explore what the IDA validation...

We speak with the filmmakers behind three of the top contenders in the Oscars' Best Documentary Feature category: The Tale of Silyan, directed by Tamara Kotevska; Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, directed by Sepideh Farsi, and Cover-Up, directed by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus. We caught up with them at SFFILM's Doc Stories in San Francisco, a 4-day film festival that has become  a critical...

Doc Talk travels to Amsterdam for IDFA, the world's biggest docmentary festival. We speak with new Artistic Director Isabel Arrate Fernandez about assuming leadership of the festival after many years heading up the IDFA Bertha Fund. Arrate Fernandez discusses reaction to the festival's controversial decision to ban Israeli organiations that accept money from Israel's government to support their ac...

Wisdom of Happiness executive producers Richard Gere and Oren Moverman join us for a conversation about their documentary focusing on the Dalai Lama's insights into finding happiness in a world that seems full of chaos and uncertainty. Gere tells us how a technique borrowed from filmmaker Errol Morris helped transform the film into "pure magic." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm...

Doc Talk heads to San Francisco for SFFILM's Doc Stories festival, where we speak with SFFILM Executive Director Anne Lai and Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks. We also visit with young filmmaker Tasha Van Zandt whose documentary A Life Illuminated closed the Doc Stories festival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We report from the 34th Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas, the longest running nonfiction cinema festival in North America. Festival Executive Director Ken Jacobson joins us to talk about highlights from this year and the festival's Filmmaker Forum, which confronted a crisis in documentary filmmaking after the defunding of a key entity that supports PBS. And we talk with Natchez di...

We visit with a couple of emerging filmmakers -- Paige Bethmann, director of Remaining Native, and Juanjo Pereira, director of Under the Flags, the Sun. Bethmann's film centers on a teenage Indigenous athlete, Ku Stevens, who dreams of running track for the University of Oregon, a goal that would take him away from the Nevada reservation where he grew up. Pereira's film reframes archive footage to...

Two new Oscar-contending documentaries explore the peril of conflict photojournalism: Love+War, directed by Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, and Armed Only with a Camera, directed by Craig Renaud. Love+Warfocuses on Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Lynsey Addario who has captured unforgettable images from Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan and other war zones, while trying to balance her work life with...

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Raoul Peck discusses his new film Orwell: 2+2=5, about 1984 author George Orwell. We caught up with him at the Camden International Film Festival, one of the most important events on the calendar for the documentary community. At Camden, we also visited with the leaders of the Points North Insitute which puts on the festival: Executive Director Elise McCave and Artistic D...

Director Mike Figgis made the most of his opportunity to follow Francis Ford Coppola as the octogenarian filmmaker poured heart and soul, not to mention tens of millions of dollars, into making his 2024 narrative feature, Megalopolis. Figgis tells us what he observed behind the scenes as Coppola attempted to bring his cinematic vision to life, beset by creative issues that led to firings and resig...

Doc Talk ventures into the disturbing territory of The Yogurt Shop Murders with director and executive producer Margaret Brown, her first foray into the true crime genre. The HBO series examines the shocking execution-style slaying of four teenage girls in 1991 in an Austin, Texas frozen yogurt store, a shocking crime that remains unsolved. Brown tells us about the impact of the documentary on fri...

German director Andres Veiel joins us to discuss his expected Oscar-contending documentary Riefenstahl, about Leni Riefenstahl who was known as Hitler's favorite filmmaker. After World War II  Riefenstahl tried to play down her role in furthering Nazi ideology through her 1930s films including Triumph of the Will and Olympia, claiming she was just an artist who had taken on assignments from Hitler...

Ahead of the 50th Toronto International Film Festival kickoff on Thursday, we get a preview of the documentary lineup from doc programmer Thom Powers. He tells us about the Paula Deen film by Bill Corben, Michèle Stephenson's True North, two-time Oscar winner Ben Proudfoot's feature documentary and much more. He also shares insights on his new book, Mondo Documentary, a collection of his TIFF prog...

As Emmy voting nears its conclusion, we talk with creators — and a key participant — of two of the top contenders. Will & Harper director Josh Greenbaum joins the show along with Harper Steele — the Harper of Will & Harper — whose story of going on a road trip with her pal Will Ferrell after announcing her transition is told in the Netflix film that's nominated for five Emmys. We also speak with N...

We speak with Matt Wolf, director of Pee-Wee as Himself, his documentary about the late actor Paul Reubens, and Katie Walsh, director and executive producer of Simone Biles Rising. Pee-wee is nominated for five Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, while Simone Biles Rising goes for the gold in the category of Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Learn more...

Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg's new documentary It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley examines the life and career of the titular singer-songwriter-guitarist, who died tragically at the age of 30. Berg discusses her long effort to gain permission from Buckley's mother, Mary Guibert, to make the film and how she combined distinctive visual elements as well as Buckley's own voice to paint a portrait of...

Description: Actor-writer-filmmaker Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine joins us to discuss Memories of Love Returned, a documentary 20 years in the making. His film explores the work of an extraordinary photographer, Kibaate Aloysius Ssalongo, who created a lasting portrait of people in rural Uganda, an oeuvre unlike any other. In the episode, hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey also parse the Emmy nominations,...

Award-winning filmmaker Reid Davenport's new investigative documentary Life After "exposes the web of moral dilemmas and profit motives surrounding assisted dying," suggesting that right-to-die laws are being used to encourage disabled people to end their lives. The director and his producer, Colleen Cassingham, join Doc Talk for a fascinating conversation around one of the most talked about films...

What films are gaining traction in the Oscar Best Documentary Feature race as we pass the mid-point of 2025? The Perfect Neighbor and Seeds leap out as early frontrunners, but it's a wide open race so far. We discuss the contenders that have emerged so far with journalist Lauren Wissot, contributing editor at Filmmaker magazine and Documentary magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit mega...

As a 4K restoration of Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse comes to theaters and home entertainment, we talk with filmmaker Fax Bahr and American Zoetrope's James Mockoski about one of the greatest documentaries of all time. Bahr directed the film — about the fraught making of Apocalypse Now —along with George Hickenlooper and Eleanor Coppola, filmmaker and wife of Apocalypse Now director...

Doc Talk heads to DC/DOX where we speak with filmmaker Rob Petit about his stunning documentary Underland, which just screened at the festival. And we head to the 11th annual Bentonville Film Festival in Arkansas for a conversation with BFF President Wendy Guerrero. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices