Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers

Luke Lorentzen made a brilliant feature debut at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival with his sparkling documentary “ Midnight Family ”, a fast-paced look at a family-owned private ambulance business in Mexico City. Luke is back at this year’s Sundance, and this time he’s focusing on life inside one hospital in New York City. “A Still Small Voice” is an intimate portrait of the spiritual care departme...

As a realistic account of the deprivations Alzheimers can bring, “The Eternal Memory” is harrowing.  But it’s also the story of Augusto’s and Paulina’s determined love in the face of this challenge.  And, finally, it’s the tale of Chile’s tragic yet ultimately triumphant democracy. Maite Alberdi (director of the Oscar-nominated “ The Mole Agent ”) sat down with Mike at Sundance to discuss her film...

10 years ago, filmmakers Michèle Stephenson and Joe Brewster premiered their epic personal documentary “ American Promise ” at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Special Jury Prize. Now, Michèle and Joe have returned to Sundance with the world premiere of their highly inventive, transcendent documentary portrait “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project”. Once again, the pair find themselves...

Premiering at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, Academy Award-nominated director Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s (" Heroin(e) ", " Recovery Boys ") elegiac, stirring, and magical new documentary “King Coal” gives an insider’s unique perspective on the profound impact that coal has had on the people and mythos of Central Appalachia. As the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of coal miners,...

Bride kidnapping. What sounds like a practice from long ago or even a tale out of folklore is actually a Lunar New Year tradition among the Hmong community of the mountains of northern Vietnam. First-time feature filmmaker Diem Ha Le explores this controversial custom through the lens of Di, a young Hmong girl, in the fascinating coming-of-age documentary “Children of the Mist”.   Joining Ken on “...

Hundreds of years ago, cut off from the outside world and confined to so-called chamber rooms, rural women in Jiangyong in southern China did something radical and transformative: they invented their own secret language. Speaking and writing “Nushu” to each other, the women found their voice and created a community of sisterhood. In her poetical and powerful documentary “Hidden Letters”, director...

Children in a shelter in Eastern Ukraine–many of whom have all but lost their parents to war, alcohol, homelessness.  But the director of “House Made of Splinters”, Simon Lereng Wilmont (“ The Distant Barking of Dogs ”) insists that his film is one founded not only on tragedy, but on hope.   Hear Simon speak with Mike on “Top Docs” (co-Creator: Ken Jacobson). Simon discusses the cyclical nature of...

It’s back! After two years of being virtual, the Sundance Film Festival, one of the world’s great film showcases, returns from January 19 – 29, 2023 to Park City and Salt Lake City, UT for a robust lineup of live, in-person screenings and events. While the second half of the festival will also feature online screenings, there is nothing like showing films “up on the mountain” to a packed audience...

The chosen 15. On December 21st, the announcement came down: the Oscar Shortlist of 15 documentaries selected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Documentary Branch to compete for the coveted award of Best Documentary Feature in the upcoming 95th Oscars. IndieWire Editor-at-Large Anne Thompson joins “Top Docs” to break down this year’s Oscar Shortlist and dissect the vote by the div...

When it comes to making documentaries with impact, filmmakers Chris Temple and Zach Ingrasci (" Living on One Dollar ", " Salam Neighbor "), co-founders of the non-profit film studio Optimist, have walked the walk. Chris and Zach have created more than 15 films and series that have raised over $91 million dollars for the films’ causes. Their films and the impact work supporting them have changed l...

The story seems simple enough:  An elderly man returns to his homeland to build a house for his family.  And this man, Julian, seems a congenial, inviting presence:  Always offering food, drink, and conversation.  But in Iliana’s Sosa’s new documentary about her beloved grandfather, “What We Leave Behind,” there’s always a sense of mystery lurking.     Sosa builds this tone through her beautiful c...

“The pivot”. It is one of the most talked about topics among documentary filmmakers. And for good reason. An unpredictable and ever-changing world can render the best laid plans obsolete and wreak havoc for filmmakers. In the course of making his urgent new documentary “Retrograde”, Matthew Heineman (“ City of Ghosts ”, “ Cartel Land ”) found himself facing a doozy of a pivot. After years of persi...

Director Reid Davenport joins Mike to discuss his new documentary, “I Didn’t See You There.”  As the title intimates, this is a film about seeing and being seen.  Reid confronts not only the legacy of P.T. Barnum–which he traces all the way to photographer Diane Arbus–but what he sees as the possibility of his own participation in the “freak show”, one which he notes doesn’t necessarily require a...

One of them is a pathbreaking filmmaker whose oddball, bracingly original work re-defined the underground cinema of the 1960s and ‘70s. The other is one of the most acclaimed and beloved actors of the last 35 years. But, to each other, they are simply “Sr.” and “Jr.” — Robert Downey, Sr. (“ Putney Swope ”, “ Greaser’s Palace ”) and Robert Downey, Jr. (“ Chaplin ”, “ Iron Man ”), that is. At first...

With its mouth-watering comfort food and welcoming atmosphere, Rachel’s of Bad Axe is the kind of family-run restaurant you’d be lucky to find in your neighborhood or passing through any small town. But, in this case, Rachel’s, started by the Siev family 25 years ago and still going strong, stands for something much bigger. As filmmaker David Siev shows in his remarkably candid and deeply emotiona...

All you need to know about Ryan White’s (“ The Keepers ”, “ The Case Against 8 ”) enthusiasm for taking on the project that would eventually become his awe-inspiring new documentary “Good Night Oppy” is that the Cabbage Patch doll he had as a kid was the astronaut version (currently selling on Etsy for up to $200). Couple this opportunity to revisit his childhood passion for space with the fact th...

“At first, I was terrified”. These are not words you expect to hear very often from Laura Poitras, one of the world’s most fearless and acclaimed documentary filmmakers. Afterall, this is the filmmaker who took on the U.S. intelligence community with her Academy Award-winning film “Citizenfour” about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. But shortly into our “Top Docs” interview about her trenchant an...

When filmmakers Tamana Ayazi (making her feature doc debut) and Marcel Mettelsiefen (“ Watani: My Homeland ”) set out in early 2020 to shoot a film about the new generation of young, well-educated Afghans, they knew they wanted to find a strong woman to tell this story. Instead, they encountered a force of nature: Zarifa Ghafari, the 26-year-old mayor of Maidan Shahr, who was not only one of Afgha...

Elvis Mitchell, longtime host of KCRW’s “ The Treatment ”, and producer of “ The Black List ”, joins Mike to discuss his new documentary “Is that Black Enough for You?”  The film recounts an explosion of Black Film which occurred mainly in the period of 1968-1978, placing it within the context of both the prior failure of Hollywood to provide real representation of Black characters, as well as a s...

From its lyrical opening shot of rats scurrying across an empty, moonlit lot somewhere in New Delhi, Shaunak Sen’s (“ Cities of Sleep ”) thoroughly original new documentary “All that Breathes” makes it clear that generous helpings of the cinematically sublime will be served up along with gritty doses of reality. The film follows Nadeem and Saud, two brothers who run a makeshift bird clinic and ten...

When your dad — who is also your best friend and your family’s source of inspiration — announces that he has made the decision to die, the immediate reaction is shock and revulsion. But, after careful consideration and discussion, it became clear to the Timoner family that paterfamilias Eli, who had been battling very severe illness and a rapidly deteriorating quality of life, was ready to take th...

Can we all agree that the date of August 20, 2015 should be enshrined as one of the most important in the history of documentary? In case you’ve forgotten, that’s the date that “Documentary Now!” burst on the scene with the airing of its first episode: “Sandy Passage”, an unforgettable debut starring Fred Armisen and Bill Hader parodying the Maysles’ classic documentary “Grey Gardens”. Somehow, th...

It’s not really about the ship. The first thing you have to understand about Margaret Brown’s (“ The Great Invisible ”, “ The Order of Myths ”) brilliant new Netflix documentary “Descendant” about the Clotilda, the last known ship to arrive with enslaved Africans in the U.S., is that it’s not primarily about the search for and discovery of this historic vessel. What carries her complex and lyrical...

“It’s a caper story, a heist movie, with women at the center. They were outlaws.” So says Tia Lessin (“ Trouble the Water ”), one of the directors of “The Janes”, the thoroughly engrossing new HBO documentary about… abortion. Set in Chicago, in the late 60’s and early 70’s, “The Janes”, also directed by Emma Pildes (“ Jane Fonda in Five Acts ”), tracks the mostly forgotten story of a courageous ba...

Four young men arrive in South Africa from their native Zimbabwe and find each other through their love of–and professional dedication to–wine.  Tinashe the big picture philosopher; Pardon the competitive jokester; Marlvin, pious and warm; and Joseph, the stalwart leader of Team Zimbabwe--all will overcome the obstacles facing them as refugees to arrive at the World Championship of Wine Tasting in...