Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers

A phone call between mother and daughter. A bad dream. Home movies. Seems simple, yet Ash Goh Hua’s short documentary “The Feeling of Being Close to You” expertly navigates physical and emotional space to provide a compelling, affecting story of attempted reconciliation. “The Feeling of Being Close to You” will play at the The Palm Springs International ShortFest as part of the “In Search of Lost...

Hollyn and Colie are range riders. Every day during the summer, these highly skilled hired hands ride their horses across the remote, rugged Idaho mountains, pushing cows across sky-high ridges to their final destination. It’s hard work for low pay, but the rewards are plentiful: the thrill of the open range, the symbiotic relationship with their animals, and, not least of all, the close bond of f...

As part of our focus on NextGen filmmakers — up-and-coming talents in the documentary world — “Top Docs” is pleased to be partnering with the 28th Palm Springs International ShortFest (June 21 – 27) to feature several filmmakers with outstanding documentary shorts in this year’s festival. In this episode, Ken talks to Pavel Mozhar, director of the IDFA-award-winning short documentary “Handbook”, a...

What more can be said about Andy Warhol? Campbell’s Soup. Marilyn Monroe. Pop Art. The Factory. Fright wig. 15 minutes. Connect the dots and you feel pretty confident in your short-hand knowledge of who Warhol was and his place in modern art and contemporary culture. But, as much as Andy Warhol is a household name when it comes to 1960’s celebrity icons, not a lot is known about Warhol’s interior...

An expat journalist reflects on the recent revolutions that have transformed her native Ukraine. A filmmaker, looking for spiritual advice, goes to a secretive Buddhist monastery in Kyoto. A mother grieves for her young son and seeks answers about why childhood drownings are shockingly common. A young dancer finds her way back to performing after experiencing a life-changing swimming accident. Wha...

“If it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going” was a phrase uttered by generations of pilots in reference to the storied Seattle-based company that was virtually synonymous with American engineering know-how. But, in 2018, a practically brand-new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft crashed soon after takeoff in Indonesia, followed five months later by a second 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia. All told, between the Lion Air...

Long before Kanye West became one of the most famous people on the planet, he was a 19-year-old up-and-coming producer of beats trying to make a name for himself in the local Chicago rap scene. Enter comedian Coodie Simmons, host of a local cable access show, who — taking inspiration from the landmark documentary “ Hoop Dreams ” — decided to turn his camera full-time on Kanye, sensing the young ra...

In “Sirens”, Rita Baghdadi (“My Country No More”, “City Rising”) joins to Mike to discuss her portrayal of the all-women Lebanese heavy metal band Slave to Sirens , with a focus on Sherry, the virtuosic lead guitarist, and Lilas, the rhythm guitarist who is the charismatic center of the band.  As much a coming of age story as a rock doc, “Sirens” explores not only their music, but the lives, relat...

“He's not a dusty antique from the past; he's the beginning of now”  That’s how Marc Shaffer describes the subject of his film, Exposing Muybridge .  Mike and Marc explore the strange and varied career of Eadweard Muybridge (just one of the many versions of the name he gave himself over the years).  Born in Britain, he moved to New York to sell books, and then to San Francisco to become an early p...

In 1976, a curator at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnography discovered a long-forgotten item stored away in the museum’s collection: a series of stark but stirring daguerreotypes taken in 1850 that are believed to be the oldest photographs of enslaved Africans in the U.S. While the discovery made headlines across the country, they did not prompt a serious inquiry by Harvard to find...

While over the decades, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has periodically been front page news in America, for the most part, the issue has not taken center stage in U.S. politics. But what if it turned out that, unbeknownst to the vast majority of Americans, state legislatures throughout the country have been approving bills that not only took a stand on the conflict, but actually penalized some...

In this installment of Anatomy of a Scene, “Ailey” director Jamila Wignot describes the creative process behind a key sequence in her remarkable portrait of American dance legend Alvin Ailey. After building his hugely successful dance company from scratch, Ailey felt an ever-increasing amount of pressure and eventually broke down. Jamila and her team, guided by Ailey’s point of view, figured out h...

In this powerful Anatomy of a Scene featurette, “Attica” director Stanley Nelson, recently awarded the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary, focuses on a climactic sequence near the end of the Oscar-nominated film. Stanley takes us inside the prison yard at Attica after authorities have re-taken control of the yard and proceed to systematically humiliate, torture, and e...

It starts like a modern day fairy tale:  from the cotton fields of Mississippi, to three national collegiate championships, to scoring the first basket in Olympic history.  But despite all her plaudits, when all that had passed, Lusia Mae (Lucy) Harrison felt she could pursue the game no further.  In his Oscar-nominated short, “The Queen of Basketball,” director Ben Proudfoot (nominated just last...

After a series of highly improbable coincidences, filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt (“ The Smell of Burning Ants ”) finds himself back in his old elementary schoolyard making a film about a bullying incident from 50 years ago. Building on Jay’s own hazy recollections and those of his former 5th grade classmates, “ When We Were Bullies ” brilliantly pieces together a highly personal story that masterfully e...

Now that the five Oscar nominees for Best Documentary Feature have been chosen, the final countdown to see who will win the coveted statuette is underway! Variety’s Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis , who’s been following the race closely for months, joins Top Docs to discuss each of the nominee’s’ chances, handicaps the race (as of the taping date!), and offers his own early prediction for a winne...

Nostalgia isn't all bad.  That’s one of the themes of our conversation with Lisa Hurwitz, director of “ The Automat ”, which charts the rise and fall of a uniquely American institution–though one with surprising roots in Northern Europe.  Despite what you might have seen in the pictures, The Automat was more than brass, nickels, and glass windows.  It was an inclusive, and for many, magical place,...

We need to talk about W. Kamau Bell. The talented stand-up comic and popular CNN series host/Executive Producer (“ United Shades of America ”) has just made his initial foray into directing with the provocative and definitive 4-part Showtime docuseries, “ We Need to Talk About Cosby ”. When a cultural icon like Bill Cosby, who was once so beloved as to be referred to as “America’s Dad”, is later c...

Australia is burning. And so is Greece, China, South Africa, Brazil, Congo, and even Siberia. And, of course, California is burning, more so than ever. In her eye-opening documentary “Bring Your Own Brigade”, Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Lucy Walker (“ The Crash Reel ”, “ Waste Land ”) skillfully lays out the causes and consequences of the terrifying, apocalyptic fires that represent a global...

Alvin Ailey is alive and well. That is the lasting impression one gets from “Ailey”, filmmaker Jamila Wignot’s vibrant and probing documentary portrait of one of the 20th Century’s greatest artists, the late dancer and choreographer Alvin Ailey. Ailey’s masterworks are still performed throughout the world. The dance company he founded more that 60 years ago, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, con...

Jessica Kingdon’s stunning feature documentary debut, the Oscar-shortlisted “Ascension”, is an enthralling, immersive journey into the heart and soul of today’s People’s Republic of China. With her unerring ability to capture small details and depict epic scale, Jessica gives us a privileged tour of the so-called “Chinese dream” at the center of China’s propulsive economy. Illuminating, awe-inspir...

In her searing Oscar-shortlisted HBO Documentary “In the Same Breath”, award-winning filmmaker Nanfu Wang challenges both the Chinese and U.S. governments’ initial responses to the pandemic. As she did in her previous film, the devastating “ One Child Nation ”, Nanfu relentlessly questions government authority and gives voice to those who insist on telling the truth, even at the risk of heavy pers...

Focussing on the issue in San Francisco, LA, and Seattle, “Lead Me Home” manages to give a sense of the tremendous scope of homelessness on the West Coast of America, while still exploring the individual complexities of the lives of those who find themselves–often “step by step”--in this situation.  Directors Pedro Kos and Jon Shenk take an unflinching look at the challenges the unsheltered face,...

Shortlisted for the Oscars, "Audible"–a short by Matt Ogens–explores the life of graduating high school football star Amaree McKenstry, a life not unlike that of any other teenager with teammates, family, friends, an on-and-off girlfriend, and the rigors of the gridiron.  But a life also marked by the unique culture that defines Maryland School for the Deaf.  Having–after years of winning–suffered...

At the height of WWII, a group of young Jewish refugees is sent to a secret POW camp near Washington D.C. The refugees soon discover that the prisoners are none other than Hitler’s top scientists. In a bitter twist of fate, it is the refugees’ job to ensure that the German prisoners will aid their new country in the coming Cold War. Finally, after decades of being classified, this stranger-than-fi...