Factual America

Melissa Lucio is the only Hispanic woman to ever be sentenced to death in the state of Texas. She is currently facing her last appeal, having spent 13 years on death row.  Her case, as well as the problems with the American justice system and the death penalty, are captured in the documentary The State of Texas vs. Melissa (2020).  Having made its festival debut, the film has received gr...

Mary J Blige is a multi-platinum R&B and Hip Hop recording artist, a 9-time Grammy award-winner, and celebrated actress. She is also the subject of a new Amazon Studios documentary that releases on June 25th, Mary J Blige’s My Life, that marked the 25th anniversary of the artist's acclaimed 1994 album, propelling her to international stardom. Joining us to talk about Mary J Blige and the making of...

The Tony and Pulitzer-Prize winning musical Rent celebrates the 25th anniversary of its Broadway premiere on June 15th. The musical's message still resonates today, as captured by the HBO documentary Revolution Rent about the first commercial American production staged in Havana, Cuba in over 50 years. Stage director and filmmaker Andy Señor, Jr played Angel in the Broadway play, directed the Hava...

Five years after the legendary Texas singer and songwriter Guy Clark passed away, his life and legacy is celebrated in a new documentary.  Without Getting Killed or Caught brings Guy's colourful life and career to the big screen.  The film is the brainchild of Grammy award-winning music producer, award-winning author, and documentary filmmaker Tamara Saviano. She and her partner in...

Mike Tyson, the former heavyweight champion, is considered one of the greatest boxers of all time. Unfortunately, he is just as famous for his exploits outside of the ring as he is for his many knockouts. The new docuseries Mike Tyson: The Knockout is currently streaming on ABC and Hulu. Senior Executive Producer for original non-fiction content at ABC News, Roxanna Sherwood, joins us to discuss t...

Richard Melville Hall, better known to most of us as Moby, is an electronic music pioneer. In the 1990s he scored numerous top ten hits on the Billboard Dance Club chart and his album Play (1999) has sold over 12 million copies. Even with all that success, Moby still found himself hitting rock bottom, contemplating suicide and wondering why he wasn't happy despite achieving everything he wanted. J...

The Villages is a self-contained retirement community located in central Florida. Often referred to as a “Disneyland for Retirees,” it is home to over 130,000 seniors. The Villages offers residents a utopian version of a bygone America: wide, safe streets, perfectly manicured lawns, and countless activities all in the service of enjoying the golden years.  Directed by filmmaker Lance Oppenhei...

The opioid crisis in the US has killed half a million people and created millions of addicts, all because the pharmaceutical companies pushed opioid medicines as not being prone to abuse or addictive. In his latest HBO doc-series The Crime of the Century (2021) , Oscar- and Emmy-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney provides the most comprehensive look to date at the opioid crisis in the US. Alex joi...

Premiering to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the Pacific War's end, the documentary Apocalypse '45 combines pristine raw, colour footage of the last months of World War II in the Asia-Pacific theatre with the voices of the two dozen men who lived through the nightmare.   Critically acclaimed director, producer and writer, Erik Nelson, joins us to discuss the making of Apocalypse ‘45 .&...

Hollywood icons Woody Allen and Mia Farrow had a 13-year relationship that ended in flames in 1992 in front of the nation's eyes. At the centre of the breakup were allegations that Woody Allen sexually abused Dylan Farrow, the daughter he had adopted with Mia Farrow. The case and the resulting fallout still resonate nearly 30 years later. The scandal has been resurrected this year with the release...

Today, we’re talking about Christopher Wallace, aka Biggie Smalls or The Notorious B.I.G., the acclaimed rapper who was tragically murdered at the age of just 24 in a drive-by shooting. Talking to us about Biggie Smalls' life and his legacy on hip-hop is Grammy-award-winning director Emmett Malloy, who directed and produced the original Netflix documentary Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell .  We...

Richard Wershe, Jr, aka White Boy Rick, is the subject of a true-crime documentary that recently landed on Netflix. Shawn Rech, the award-winning director and producer of White Boy (2017), joins us to talk about the tragic circumstances surrounding White Boy Rick's over-30-year incarceration for a nonviolent offence. Shawn is well-known for creating documentaries that help to overturn wrongful con...

Murder Among the Mormons (2021) is the new Netflix true-crime docuseries about Mark Hofmann, who is one of the most notable forgers in history. Hofmann created forgeries related to the Latter Day Saint movement, which led to fame and fortune. But the truth caught up with Hofmann one fateful day in 1985, as two innocent people lost their lives.  We are joined by award-winning co-director and p...

James Jordan, the father of basketball legend Michael Jordan, was found tragically murdered in the middle of swamp just days after his 57th birthday in 1993. There were many mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, but the investigation and trial were deemed a success, resulting in the conviction of two teenage boys. But why does one of the convicted still proclaim his innocence almost 30 y...

On paper, Tina Turner probably should never have become a rock-and-roll superstar. But there she is anyway, o ne of the greatest survivors in modern music, who has overcome extreme adversity to define her career, her identity and her legacy on her own terms.  TINA (2021) offers a fresh perspective on the life and career of Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock and Roll. Through never-before-seen foo...

When we think of alternative music of the 1990s, bands like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against the Machine or Green Day immediately come to mind – bands who were supported by major labels and commercially viable.  However, there was a whole sea of other underground bands, spanning a few generations, who were completely fobbed off by the corporate music labels, who didn't sell as many re...

Martha Cooper is an iconic American photojournalist and the unlikely hero of street artists across the globe. She documented New York's underground graffiti scene in the 1970s, at a time when street art was looked down upon as being immoral and lacking in artistic merit. But Martha instead fell in love with the scene and in 1984 published her photos in Subway Art . After a failed launch, the book...

Tim O'Brien is one of the most influential living American writers, a National Book Award winner and the author of the groundbreaking book The Things They Carried . Tim joins us along with award winning director and producer Aaron Matthews to discuss Aaron's film, The War and Peace of Tim O’Brien . Aaron spent over a year filming Tim as he battled to write one final book – a legacy for his young f...

Rural Appalachia is a part of America that’s vanishing before our eyes. With the loss of the coal industry, the future for the people of eastern Kentucky is uncertain. However, this is what inspires the self-proclaimed "last hillbilly" Brian Ritchie.  French directors and writers, Diane Sara Bouzgarrou and Thomas Jenkoe, join us to discuss their award-winning documentary The Last Hillbilly (2...

The HBO documentary miniseries McMillion$ tells the gripping tale behind the McDonald's Monopoly promotion scam. Between 1989 and 2001 a criminal ring defrauded more than $24 million in prizes from McDonald's. If not for a tipoff to a backwater FBI office, McDonald's never would have found out about the fraud. The ensuing investigation resulted in the arrests of over 50 people.  Directors and...

Steve McQueen, the Hollywood icon, had a passion for car racing. However, his long lost Formula 1 film project never saw the light of day – until now. Joining us to talk about this incredible story are the filmmakers behind Steve McQueen: The Lost Movie (2021), director, writer and producer Alex Rodger, and archivist Richard Wiseman. The film elegantly captures Steve McQueen's stardom and passion...

Miles Davis was among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. An iconic trumpeter and composer, Miles changed the genre of jazz more times than anyone before him or anyone since. He invented what we today call cool jazz, hard bop, and jazz fusion. His album Kind of Blue is one of the greatest pieces of art of the 20th century.  Award-winning d...

Saturday Night Live , The Blues Brothers , and the National Lampoon — John Belushi was an iconic figure of the 1970s comedy scene. But he was more than just a comic genius.  At one moment, Belushi had the number one show on television, the number one film at the box office, and the number one record on the charts. Just three years later he died  from a heroin overdose aged just 33. How d...

For years Martin Luther King Jr, the leader and hero of the civil rights movement, faced constant surveillance and harassment by the US government. Helping us to learn more about this dark chapter in America's history is award-winning director, editor and producer, Sam Pollard, whose latest film MLK/FBI premieres on January 15th 2021, ahead of Martin Luther King Jr Day on January 18th. As a filmma...

Abraham Lincoln may have been America's greatest leader. The 16th president ended slavery and led the nation out of one of its darkest periods.  However, Lincoln's life and legacy were cut short that fateful night in 1865, when the actor John Wilkes Booth entered Ford's Theatre and killed the president with an assassin's bullet.   Today, only 130 photographs of President Lincoln are...