Fog of Truth

Money makes the world go round, does it not? Let the capital flow, so its profits may trickle down in a wellspring of bounty for all … except that the greater the flow, the faster it trickles up, away from the masses and into the hands of a rarefied, entitled elite that never seems to stop wanting more. In this week's episode, Women Make Movies' Executive Director Debra Zimmerman joins us for a di...

This week, we briefly step away from our problems at home (while never forgetting or minimizing them) to celebrate the culinary traditions of our neighbors to the south. Guest host Sandie Angulo Chen (of Common Sense Media ) joins us as we review Elizabeth Carroll's Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy , which profiles the titular nonagenarian, British-born specialist of Mexican cuisine. Then, Chris inter...

Our nation is burning, and the fire has deep roots in our past. The police violence against communities and people of color is nothing new, emerging from the legacy of slavery that taints our history. In this week's episode, with guest host Lisa Sanchelo (of the podcast I Love That Movie! ), we review Becoming , the recent documentary about Michelle Obama and her eponymous memoir. Then, Bart and C...

In this week's episode, we discuss cults (or not) and the science of climate change, de-extinction, space exploration and more, all in a brief 50 minutes, as we review Spaceship Earth and interview directors David Alvarado and Jason Sussberg about their We Are As Gods . Joining us as guest host this time is film critic and fellow podcaster Jessica Baxter (whose " Paid in Puke " is worth a listen)....

Welcome back! We kick off Season 9 with two documentaries about famous film people, starting with a group review of the biopic Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind and then cutting to an interview with French director Gregory Monro about Kubrick by Kubrick , which would have premiered at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, had it happened. Joining us as guest cohost is critic Danielle Solzman, of Solzy a...

In this bonus episode, Bart and Chris review the new nine-part Netflix documentary series The Innocence Files and then interview Sarah Dowland, director of the final episode. The series is divided into three sections – ""The Evidence," "The Witness" and "The Prosecution" – each of which is comprised of three episodes, some of which are linked narratively, as well as thematically, and some of which...

In this bonus episode, Bart and Chris chat with Melanie Addington, Executive Director, Oxford Film Festival (which was supposed to run March 18-22); Leslie Raymond, Executive Director, Ann Arbor Film Festival (running online March 24-29); and Lela Meadow-Conner, Executive Director, Film Festival Alliance . Together, we discuss the current state of film festivals in the age of COVID-19, and how the...

Documentarian and educator Elizabeth Coffman joins Bart and Chris to review Andrew Goldberg's powerful examination of the resurgent scourge of antisemitism across the globe, the just released Viral: Antisemitism in Four Mutations . Bart then interviews Allen and Cynthia Mondell, directors of the 2008 documentary The Monster Among Us , which profiled antisemitism in Europe 10 years ago. Plus ça cha...

Joining Bart and Chris as guest host for a robust discussion of the three-part 2018 BBC documentary series They've Gotta Have Us , just recently released on Netflix, is film critic Roxana Hadadi . We discuss that program's approach to the history of African American and Black British actors and directors in Hollywood. Then, Bart interviews director Jacqueline Olive about her film Always in Season...

How high above soar the stars, enchanting us with their blazing glory! Or perhaps we only project such power onto them, and they are merely ordinary beings, elevated by our own desires. In today's episode, guest host Leslie Combemale (the Cinema Siren , herself) joins us as we review the new Taylor Swift biopic Miss Americana , which just premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival and is now ava...

Well, the 2020 Academy Awards may have come and gone, but that's no reason to stop watching the nominated films, even the ones that did not win. In this week's episode, returning guest host Patricia Aufderheide joins Bart and Chris to discuss all 5 of the Oscar-nominated short documentaries, after which Chris interviews co-directors Waad al-Kateab and Edward Watts (along with al-Kateab's husband,...

Democracy is under worldwide threat, from dictators, would-be dictators and those followers who seek power at the expense of liberty. In this week's episode, we discuss two recent documentaries about this very trend. First, with guest host Mirella Martinelli – a Brazilian filmmaker living in Florida – we review Petra Costa's Oscar-nominated The Edge of Democracy , which tells the disturbing tale o...

Welcome to Season 8! In this episode, we invite back our old friend and cohost Summre Garber to talk about the documentary slate at the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival , where she is co-captain of the documentary-features program. We learn what she is up to now and hear about her favorites at this year's fest. In addition, Bart and Chris interview the directors of two of those movies, Film About a Fa...

In this bonus episode, cohosts Bart Weiss and Chris Reed talk with Oscar-winning documentarian  Morgan Neville ( 20 Feet from Stardom ), discussing his career and thoughts on the art of filmmaking. In addition, we consider two different approaches to the same topic, comparing Neville's 2018 nonfiction  Won't You Be My Neighbor? to Marielle Heller's 2019 fictional A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhoo...

In this bonus episode, cohosts Bart and Chris revisit their favorite documentaries of 2019, and then invite, each in turn, all the podcast's Season 7 guest hosts to chat about their favorites. Those guests, in order of appearance, are: Sedika Mojadidi , Betsy McLane , Anuradha Rana , Jennifer Proctor , Sonali Gulati and Patricia Aufderheide . Given how many films Chris and Bart always watch, they...

For our final episode of Season 7, we invite Patricia Aufderheide , of American University, back on the show (she was Bart's interview subject, discussing her role in developing the modern rules of Fair Use, on our August 28 bonus episode ). The theme this time is the role of journalism in today's world (and how we got here), as we review the new documentary Mike Wallace Is Here and Chris intervie...

As our seventh season enters its final third, Bart and Chris join guest host Sonali Gulati , a filmmaker and faculty member at Virginia Commonwealth University, for a review of Jacqueline Olive's searing look back at America's violent history of lynching, Always in Season . Then, Bart interviews Elizabeth Coffman, co-director of Flannery , a documentary about the late, great southern writer Flanne...

This week, we welcome guest host Jennifer Proctor , filmmaker and Associate Professor of Journalism and Screen Studies at University of Michigan-Dearborn, for a robust discussion of the new documentary #FemalePleasure   and its examination of female agency in the modern world. Following that group review, we play Chris's interview with director Pia Hellenthal and writer Giorgia Malatrasi, co-creat...

Joining us this week is documentarian Anuradha Rana  – Associate Professor, School of Cinematic Arts, DePaul University – as we discuss Alexandre O. Philippe's Memory: The Origins of Alien   and interview director Alyssa Bolsey and cinematographer Camilo Lara of Beyond the Bolex . Both films deal, albeit in very different ways, with behind-the-scenes looks at the art of filmmaking. From blood-curd...

For this second episode of our current season we try something new with a look back at an important film from the past, Barbara Kopple's 1976 Harlan County U.S.A. , which won the 1977 Best Documentary Oscar . Why this trip down docu-memory lane? Two reasons: 1) our guest host this week is actually a guest historian, Betsy McLane , who not only knows just about everything there is to know about doc...

We are back for a new season, and this time with a series of guest hosts – a new one each episode – to accompany Bart and Chris on their journey through documentary cinema. Our guest for this episode is filmmaker Sedika Mojadidi , whose Facing the Dragon I mentioned on our April 17 bonus episode . We review Danish director Mads Brügger's Cold Case Hammarskjöld , a wild romp of an investigative mov...

In this bonus episode, Bart interviews Patricia Aufderheide, of American University's Center for Media & Social Impact , about how she first developed the guidelines for "fair use," those rules whereby documentary filmmakers place footage from other sources in their films without fear of lawsuits. It's one of the most important developments in the nonfiction filmmaking worldof the last 20 years, a...

Release date – 7/24/19 Bonus Episode – "The Great Hack" This bonus episode features a review of the new Netflix documentary The Great Hack   – which opens today on the site – and an interview with its directors, Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim, from this year's AFI DOCS film festival. The film discusses both the 2016 Brexit and 2016 U.S. presidential elections and how the public's personal data was...

There are no shortage of documentaries on various aspects of film history and we discuss a few of them plus we have a group review of BE NATURAL and Chris interviews Midge Costin of MAKING WAVES.   Group Review Documentary: BE NATURAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF ALICE GUY BLACHE (2018) / USA (Director / Producer: Pamela B. Green) Now playing at select theatres nation-wide   Film Featured in Interview Por...

This episode is dedicated to 2019 AFI DOCS featuring an interview with Festival Director Michael Lumpkin, group discussion of three features playing this year and an interview with Chris and Linda Goldstein Knowlton of WE ARE THE RADICAL MONARCHS.   Group Review of Three films at 2019 AFI Docs: Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project / 2019 (Director: Matt Wolf) Slay the Dragon / 2019 (Directors: Bara...