Talking Documentary Podcast

When Phil Wall last appeared on this podcast, he was the everything guy—director, cinematographer, writer, editor—on The Book Keepers , a film about death and grief made intimate by how few hands touched it. Now Wall returns with a radically different project: a three-episode, 137-minute history of American men's professional soccer, delivered on a punishing deadline with a small army of creatives...

Dear Audrey follows veteran documentary filmmaker Martin Duckworth as he cares for his wife Audrey, who is living with Alzheimer’s. What begins as a portrait of daily life gradually expands into a reflection on memory, devotion, and acceptance. Director Jeremiah Hayes allows the narrative to emerge organically, and in so doing, captures moments of striking intimacy. The resulting film resists easy...

Every summer, on the very edge of Chincoteague island, there was a little world called Inlet View. Generations came through: grandparents, parents, kids who grew up barefoot on the sand, all returning to the same sliver of shoreline year after year. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t curated. It was theirs … a working-class refuge built from patched roofs, borrowed tools, and a deep sense of neighborl...

Given today’s combative political environment, why would anyone want to watch a film about government? Well, because Brandon and Lance Kramer made it. Brothers and filmmakers, the Kramers have carved out a space in documentary that’s reflective and thoughtful in an era where loud and combative rule the day. In “ The First Step ,” the Kramers show that government still works when everyday citizens...

Even as a young boy growing up in Alaska, David Holthouse was fascinated by newspapers, storytelling and life on the margins. His ability to blend into his surroundings led to a career as a self-styled gonzo journalist. Holthouse did his best work on the inside, infiltrating groups as varied as neo-Nazis and crystal meth addicts. But as the media landscape changed, so too did Holthouse. He now app...

Morgan Elliott is a documentary filmmaker and long-time resident of New York’s “North Country.” Going back to his childhood, Elliott had heard the story of Potsdam’s famous toilet garden, a self-styled protest by a Potsdam resident in response to perceived mistreatment by the village’s government. The toilets are revered by some, and reviled by others. Elliott waded into the dispute during the pan...

The Book Keepers tells the story of Phil Wall’s mother, Carol, a gifted writer who dreamed of becoming a published author and who finally achieved her goal … just as her long battle with breast cancer took a turn for the worse. Carol was unable to tour with her new book and passed away shortly thereafter. Her husband, Dick, did what a loyal husband would do: He went on the book tour in her place....

Some 20 years ago, New York filmmaker Zachary Levy went looking for a story that would become his first documentary feature film. He wound up finding the personality of a lifetime in Stanley Pleskun, a New Jersey scrap metal hauler with a colorful side hustle. In Levy’s 2009 documentary Strongman , Levy contributes an enduring character to the canon of vérité filmmaking. Intro music: Arne Bang Hus...

Ten years ago, Shaleece Haas stumbled upon a musician whose lyrics captured her attention ... and then her imagination. Turns out the musician, Bennett Wallace, had a story to go along with his music. It was a story increasingly playing out in living rooms across the country and one that is forcing American society to rethink old ideas about gender and identity. In "Real Boy," Haas tenderly trains...

Robert Greene is an award-winning filmmaker who directed the highly regarded Netflix documentary, "Procession." But at the dawn of the 2010s, Greene was only beginning to refine his voice and vision as a filmmaker. In 2011, Greene parlayed a family connection into access to a handful of small-time pro wrestlers and followed them as they prepared for a show in rural North Carolina. The result is do...

Drew Xanthopolous was a young, unestablished filmmaker when he came across a New York Times photo essay that would launch his career—as well as change the next five years of his life. The essay documented the lives of people who suffer from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, a crippling condition that forces the afflicted to rethink everything about their day-to-day lives (including where they live an...

In the United States, stray dogs are not allowed to live on the street. They are whisked away to live in concrete cells. The approach is very different in some cities in Europe and Asia, where stray dogs are allowed to live freely alongside the human population. Elizabeth Lo pondered these differences and what it all means. She wanted to create a visual document that captures stray dogs as seen fr...

Justin Schein is a veteran filmmaker who has worked with scores of documentary subjects, but nothing could prepare him for an aging yippee named Mayer Vishner. Schein thought he was making a documentary about Vishner’s life. Vishner had a different idea, and it shook Schein to his core and tested his mettle as a friend, filmmaker and human being. Schein's 2015 film, "Left On Purpose," follows the...

Joe Brandmeier was an average married guy who accepted the ups and downs of being coupled. But then a particularly tough patch in his marriage prompted him to think more deeply about the institution. Brandmeier became deeply curious about why we get married, what it means to be married, and how different kinds of couples make it work. He hit the road and interviewed a variety of married couples th...

Hollywood photographer Pamela Littky was overtaken by a nagging curiosity ... what happens, she wondered, to the thousands of kids named Most Likely to Succeed in high schools all across America? Littky embarked on her first documentary film to find out. Ten years later, she answered the question in her 2019 film, "Most Likely to Succeed." It's an endearing and honest look into life's most vulnera...

Jesse Alk's father, Howard, was a documentarian who died when Jesse was a child. Decades later, Jesse wound up retracing his father's footsteps to Kolkata, India, where Howard had documented West Bengali musicians in the early '70s. Jesse fell in love with the city, its people, and particularly its native street dogs. He filmed the dogs and the people who care for them, capturing the loneliness an...

Dani Connor Wild was volunteering for a wildlife photographer in northern Sweden when the Covid pandemic descended and locked her in place. For the next six months she lived alone in a town of 20 mostly elderly residents and found solace and meaning by heading into the dense, rustic woods near her home. What she found there altered the trajectory of her young career and transformed her into a succ...

In 1996, Michael Lucid was a senior at the Crossroads school in Santa Monica, California. He noticed a social phenomenon that had the school buzzing and wanted to know more. So he grabbed a camcorder and began documenting a group of impossibly young female idealists whose brash manners and clothes were ruffling feathers on campus. In the process, he created a time capsule that still captivates peo...

In 1982, three young men from Allentown, Pa., climbed aboard a billboard in a competition to win an $18,000 mobile home. Times were tough, owning a home was an inaccessible dream, and the three competitors were determined to win. They wound up living on the billboard far longer than anyone imagined and became global celebrities in the process. Nearly four decades later, their story of obsession an...

The internet is awash in what are known as "Bill Murray stories." Murray crashing a bachelor party. Bill Murray joining a random kickball game. Bill Murray washing a stranger's dishes. Tommy Avallone traveled to two continents to find out whether these stories were true, and what they tell us about Bill Murray as well as ourselves. Avallone's 2018 film, "The Bill Murray Stories: Life Lessons Learn...

When Jeremy Workman learned his friend, Matt Green, planned to walk every street in New York City, Workman did what any sensible filmmaker would do: he grabbed his camera and followed along. Three years and 600 hours of footage later, Workman had everything he needed to tell the story of Green's unusual quest in Workman's film, The World Before Your Feet. This is a public episode. If you would lik...

Daniel Weinshenker is a poet and creative writer whose literary journey has led him to a new and unexpected artform—helping ordinary people document their lives through digital storytelling. The stories that ensue are tiny documentary films that capture the intimate and symbolic moments in everyday life. Weinshenker is the director of the Denver office of StoryCenter, a non-profit with a mission t...

Eddie Fischer was a charismatic teacher who ruled the halls of an elite prep school in Charleston, South Carolina. He also harbored a terrifying secret that left shame and heartbreak in his wake. Director Paige Tolmach was a student at that school. Three decades later, Tolmach decided to tell the story of how Fischer shattered so many lives without being detected. Her film, "What Haunts Us," was r...

Jesse Ross was a 19-year-old college student who disappeared at a college conference and was never seen or heard from again. Brian Rose sits down to discuss Ross's disappearance and how he approached the mysterious story in his 2019 documentary,  "When I Last Saw Jesse."  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.t...

"Talking Documentary" is a new podcast devoted to documentary films and the people who make them. Join us for a series of conversations with the great creators in the documentary field. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.talkingdocumentary.com