From now until New Year's day, the P.O.V. Blog will be posting about great documentaries from the P.O.V. archives. Rent one at the local video store or via Netflix to watch with your friends and family during the holiday season.
Every Mothers Son recalls accusations of police brutality during New York's Giuliani years
When Amadou Diallo died in a hail of police gunfire in his New York apartment building's vestibule while reaching for his wallet, there was widespread public outrage. Many New Yorkers believed Diallo's death was an egregious example of police negligence or criminal misconduct aimed at poor and minority communities. Others, including then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and the police leadership, suggested the killing was a tragic yet unavoidable accident in the dangerous job of policing the city's mean streets. Despite differing accounts of police actions and motives, one thing was certain: the young Amadou, a West African studying in the U.S., was guilty of nothing more than coming home at the same moment a squad from the NYPD's Street Crimes Unit happened to be passing his building.
I thought of Every Mother's Son a few weeks ago while listening to NPR's excellent "On the Media" program. On their November 30 broadcast, a reporter from Arkansas talked about his frustration with the national media and their coverage of former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. Arkansas Times reporter Max Brantley complained that "Huckabee's ethical history isn't making the news as much as his folksy conservative bona-fides," saying that he and other local reporters "have some insights that the rest of the world maybe hasn't tuned into yet."
As we approach the primary phase of the 2008 presidential election starting later this week in Iowa, I want to recommend this film that aired on P.O.V. in 2004 that recalls the history of another presidential hopeful. Every Mother's Son takes a look at events that occurred during Rudolph Guiliani's term as mayor of New York City, before he became "America's mayor."
I'm sad to report that the White Plume family, featured in Standing Silent Nation, one of this year's P.O.V. films, lost their home in an electrical fire last week. Thankfully no one was hurt, but according to this report on Daily Kos, "[Debra White Plume] only had time to snatch her grandson, pipe, purse, and cellphone & get out the door. Everything burned. Total loss. All papers even computers. 'It all happened in a half hour,' she said." (link)
Tom Murphy, the Daily Kos blogger who wrote about the fire last week, is accepting donations for the White Plume family. Although they have found a place to stay, they are in need of financial support.
Update from Alex White Plume:
I send this message to all my kola. We went through a house fire and lost everything we owned, we are all alive, and coming out of shock now. Thank you for your prayers and support, we want to remain on the land. We appreciate the generosity of everyone but we cannot accept donations of old clothes. We are going to rebuild and need financial support. Our mailing address is PO Box 71, Manderson, SD 57756 or PO Box 535 Manderson, SD 57756. Every penny will be appreciated, we can go use a friend's computer occasionally so I am checking my email sometimes. The house burned to the ground so we are starting now to work to clear the rubble and prepare to rebuild. — alex
From now until New Year's day, the P.O.V. Blog will be posting about great documentaries from the P.O.V. archives. Rent one at the local video store or via Netflix to watch with your friends and family during the holiday season.
Speedo: A Demolition Derby Love Story is a bang-up choice for your DVD player.
Looking for a quirky "demolition-derby love story" for your holiday movie rental list? Try Jesse Moss' Speedo!
This award-winning documentary looks at the promising racing career and troubled family life of Ed "Speedo" Jager, one of the nation's top demolition-derby drivers. Trapped in a failing marriage, Speedo channels life's frustrations onto the track, hoping to parlay his talents into a "real" racing career. The film captures Speedo's collisions and confrontations during one tumultuous year as he struggles to achieve his dreams on the track and succeed as a husband, a father and a man. When he falls for Liz, a racetrack official from New Jersey, his life takes a surprising turn.
From now until New Year's day, the P.O.V. Blog will be posting about great documentaries from the P.O.V. archives. Rent one at the local video store or via Netflix to watch with your friends and family during the holiday season.
The Sweetest Sound by Alan Berliner (P.O.V. 2001)
What's in a name? Alan Berliner — whose films, including Nobody's Business and Wide Awake, have always focused on his own family and identity — tackles the subject of his own name in The Sweetest Sound. Over the years, he'd seen a plethora of Alan, Alain and Allen Berliners. There's even another filmmaker — a Belgian who made Ma Vie en Rose — named Alain Berliner!
Our Alan, the "original" Alan, goes on a quest to discover the power and mystery of names in the film. Along the way, he takes a look at the historical origin of names, their social roles and the way names were changed for American immigrants. He also invites a dozen Alan Berliners to his home for a dinner party, in hopes of learning what they all share in common.
We all have a unique bond to our names, and to me, it's fascinating to watch someone else's relationship to his name in The Sweetest Sound. While Berliner found the world full of other Alan Berliners, I've never met anyone else with my name. Since the dawn of Google, I have — at times — wished that my name was "Jane Smith" or "Jennifer Lee." I like my rather unique name, but I have no name-dopplegangers to hide behind, and my name will never allow me to fade into electronic anonymity. Berliner's meditation on identity is smart and entertaining, and will have you and your family talking about your own names and heading to the computer to see who else shares them.
Incidentally, P.O.V.'s website for The Sweetest Sound spawned one of our most popular features ever: Find out how common your last name is in America in the Last Name Popularity Index. I was surprised to find out that my last name, Xu, a very common name in China, was ranked as high as 4,838 in America. Can you the guess what the top ten last names in America are?
On December 12th, P.O.V. aired Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock's latest film, Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. Viewers wrote in with questions about the film for Ms. Mock via email and via blog comments. You can read Part I of Ms. Mock's answers here. The following is Part II of her answers to viewer questions.
Question: First of all, I thank you for your film; it was outstanding! I laughed and I cried. As a resident of Wisconsin and a teacher, I struggle with the lack of exposure to the arts that we see in our state. (The same lack of exposure holds true for many other areas - basically any state not on the east coast.) While it is true that many works can be accessed electronically, it is impossible for both children and adults to experience the immediacy of live theater that presents the works of Tony Kushner and others like him. Do you feel it is the responsibility of artists to bring their work to a larger audience? Could this be realistically done in a way that would be financially advantageous to the artists? Or will the majority of the country continue to be forgotten by the important artists of our time?
Freida Lee Mock: I feel that it's the responsibility of the artist to tell the truth and to be true to himself. How that translates to an audience, and the size of that audience, is dependent on many factors. Certainly we all recognize that the mass media — movies, television and now the Internet — are vehicles for reaching a larger audience than can be done through live theater (which include drama, opera and ballet). I don't feel that the majority of the country will be "forgotten" as long as local organizations support the arts and seek ways to bring works to their communities. In other words, regional and local theater can often draw wonderful talent to mount "great works of art." That has certainly been the case in the past, the present and I hope it will continue to be so in the future.
Question: I wonder if you could share some suggestions for younger playwrights that you and Mr. Kushner would point to for younger audiences who are interested in seeing plays written by people of our generation speaking to issues relevant to us today.
Mock: All artists need an enthusiastic audience to sustain themselves. If younger audiences want to see and hear works that are resonant, a great start would be to seek out emerging playwrights and artists in your community and volunteer to become part of the team to help bring the work to the community. There are infinite things a devoted fan can do to help produce a play or project. Volunteer!
From now until New Year's day, the P.O.V. Blog will be posting about great documentaries from the P.O.V. archives. Rent one at the local video store or via Netflix to watch with your friends and family during the holiday season.
Hot fun in the wintertime: Mel Stuart's Wattstax
If you're someplace cold this holiday, and are already looking forward to warmer weather, check out Mel Stuart's live concert film Wattstax (P.O.V. 2004), filmed in the summer of 1972 in L.A.'s open-air Memorial Coliseum. The benefit concert, staged by the legendary Stax recording label, on the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots, drew 90,000 people for an incredible musical lineup. As time went by, it became known as the Black Woodstock.
The P.O.V. Wattstaxwebsite includes a 1972 primer with a little context on the film for those too young to remember, a roundtable on the cultural and musical currents in the film, and soundtrack samples. Check it out!
Ah, the flush feeling of having a documentary that receives high accolades and big box office returns! As I mentioned last week, not many doc filmmakers have felt that way this year, which puts Charles Ferguson among the elite few. I was at a fancy screening and reception this week for his film No End in Sight, a great doc about how the U.S. got into such a quagmire in Iraq. The movie was shown at Scandinavia House on Manhattan's Upper East Side. The audience included former jailed New York Times journalist Judith Miller, who took copious notes. Afterwards we were whisked away in cars to be wined and dined at a private room in the Hotel Plaza Athenee. No End in Sight is deservedly winning plenty of critics' awards, has mustered $1.4 million at the box office, and there's buzz that it could be the movie to beat at the Oscars.
Ferguson was in a good mood, as well he should be. I talked to him about all the other movies this year that have not been as well received as his. For Ferguson, the two most tragically under-loved and underseen movies this year were Manda Bala by Jason Kohn, the multi-dimensional story of Brazilian culture by way of frog farming and the kidnapping epidemic there, and Hot House by Shimon Dotan, which takes a close look at Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli prison.
I haven't seen Hot House, but I had to agree with Ferguson about Manda Bala: it is one of my favorite unseen docs from this year, along with My Kid Could Paint That by Amir Bar-Lev and War/Dance by Sean Fine and Andrea Nix.
A film still from Manda Bala
At first viewing, I wasn't really taken with Manda Bala, mainly because of the poor image quality. I wasn't sure whether to blame the Angelika Theater's projector (and not just the F train rumbling underneath) for throwing off the image, or blame the poor image quality on the film itself. Ferguson, however, assured me that the film looks gorgeous when it's screened properly; director Jason Kohn used the same camera lens Stanley Kubrick developed for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Even with my frustrations with the film quality, though, I was still swept away by Kohn's complex tale. The director once worked under Errol Morris and the film owes much to Morris' affectionate way with both victims of injustice and the plain bizarreness of humanity.
The new documentary Steal a Pencil For Me, by Michàle Ohayon, promises to be a Holocaust story unlike any other you've seen. Jack and Ina Polak fell in love in a concentration camp in 1943. He was also married to someone else at the time. The couple has now been married for 60 years, and the film recounts their story through readings of their love letters, contemporary footage and archival footage. The film has garnered excellent reviews from many critics, and the The New York Times says that "what makes Ms. Ohayon's movie special is its recognition that "epic horrors don't erase private dramas." However, though the Onion A.V. Club grudgingly admits "the film can't help but be moving," it points out that the film doesn't bring much of the feeling of the couple to the surface.
ON DVD
Deep Water by Louise Ormond and Jerry Rothwell is about the 1968 round-the-world yacht race, and follows a number of competitors, including Donald Crowhurst, a British electronics-shop owner who is determined to finish the voyage despite his inexperience. Crowhurst kept a diary, and filmed himself on his vessel, and as he sailed on despite increasingly harrowing conditions, the film expands to be a haunting tale of what happens when you reach beyond your grasp. TVGuide.com calls the film a "superb documentary" and the Baltimore Sun says that it should be "seen again and again."
Freelance photojournalist Stephanie Sinclair has won the 2007 UNICEF photo of the year award for her striking portrait of a 40-year-man and his 11-year-old bride in Afghanistan.
Sinclair was featured prominently in the 2004 P.O.V. documentary, War Feels Like War, which documented the lives of reporters and photographers who circumvented military media control to get access to the real Iraq War. We interviewed Sinclair on the P.O.V. website later that year to find out more about her work.
Looking for a gift for your history-obsessed uncle? Your environmentally-conscious friend? Your urban sophisticate of a brother-in-law? Documentary DVDs could be the way to their heart this holiday season. When it comes to ordering documentaries, the glut of online stores selling DVDs make purchasing and shipping a breeze, but buyers and gifters beware: despite what you might think, one size doesn't necessarily fit all.
The Populist Amazon.com's Documentary Best Sellers list is an excellent place to visit if you're not sure where to get start. The list is updated hourly with what everyone else is buying (namely, docs about the planet and wars, with some musical docs thrown in — at least this week). Here, you can pick up a 5-disc set of The Blue Planet — Seas of Life for your teenage cousin who's taken a sudden interest in marine biology, or a copy of Ken Burns'The War for that history-obsessed uncle.
The Cinephile To the cinephile, the Criterion Collection's stamp of approval carries far greater weight than an Academy Award. The collection is a series of important classic and contemporary films on DVD. Each film chosen for inclusion is remastered and lovingly packaged with special extra features into a beautiful collector's item. Criterion's list of documentary DVDs includes canonical films from Robert Flaherty'sNanook of the North to the Maysles' Grey Gardens. But it also offers up unexpected gems, like the quirky and fascinating docu-series Fishing With John, written, directed and hosted by musician John Lurie and featuring everyone from Dennis Hopper to Tom Waits.
Last week, P.O.V. aired Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock's latest film, Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. Viewers wrote in with questions about the film for Ms. Mock via email and via blog comments. She'll be answering a selection of those questions on the P.O.V. Blog this week.
Question: Wrestling With Angels is about the life and work of Tony Kushner, a playwright who addresses topics like war and peace, gay rights, terrorism, American foreign policy and race relations in his plays and screenplays. How do you see Kushner's political point of view play out in his work? How do you express your political views in your documentary films?
Freida Lee Mock: The question of art and politics has come up often in the discussions surrounding the film. A recent project I worked on demonstrates some of the ways I think about the connection between the two.
Adel Hamad is a Sudanese man who had been held at Guantanamo Bay for nearly 5 years without a court hearing. I heard about Adel's case, and I worked together with actor Martin Sheen on a video about Adel's case, and about the need for transparency and open hearings for detainees.
I'm happy to report that Adel Hamad was released in December 2007, and has been reunited with his family in Sudan. You can watch a video of Adel being reunited with his daughter at the Project Hamad Blog (footage courtesy of Al Jazeera). This is the result of all that hard work — a good man goes home to his family. However, Adel was only one of the many detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and many others are still in custody, still in legal limbo. You can find out more about Adel Hamad and the necessity of habeas corpas at Project Hamad.
Other viewers of Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner have also asked me about the relationship between art and politics in Tony Kushner's work, and in my work. You can watch me talk about this topic in the video below.
Read Part II of Freida Lee Mock's response to viewer questions.
We test out the service from Netflix that allows instant viewing of movies for PC users.
When Netflix's '"Watch Now" feature, which allows users* to watch* movies* instantly*, launched earlier this year, there was some excitement, until all those asterisks reared their ugly heads. And rear they did, and quickly, which is always how things happen on the Internet. Though the promise was great, the delivery proved less so: "users" means only PC users (and then it's recommended only those 1.5 GHz or faster with 1 GB of RAM or more); "watch"-ing is limited to 5-48 hours monthly, depending on your Netflix plan; "movies" is a small subset of the 90,000+ titles offered by Netflix — less than 10%; and "now" requires Windows Media Player 11 be installed, as well as additional Netflix Digital Rights Management (DRM ) software, and a decently fast broadband connection (1.5 mbps recommended, a notch higher than the baseline DSL service). If you can overcome these hurdles — and there's a clamor from the many who can't — the service actually works rather well. The streaming quality is surprisingly good, and though the selection is by no means exhaustive, there is still plenty to see. For those looking for an online resource for great docs, Netflix's "Watch Now" is worth keeping in mind.
As the curtain rises on another entry into the blogosphere, let me quickly introduce myself: My name is Tom Roston, and I was a Senior Editor at Premiere magazine — where I covered movies 24/7 for ten years — until that publication folded this year. I have always been a passionate fan of documentaries, particularly theatrical docs, and had planned for years to write a feature celebrating the most influential documentaries of all time at Premiere. I missed my chance, so now I'm deeply grateful to the good people at P.O.V., who have thrown out a small patch of carpet on the Internet for me to expound on everything doc-related. I'll be writing a post every week here on the P.O.V. Blog, and I plan to write about whatever documentary issues are on my mind or are on the minds of P.O.V. Blog visitors like you. I'll be happy to field whatever you've got — whether it's gripes, groans or gratuitous gossip.
But enough about me — let's start with a bang. Or, rather, the whimper heard at the box office this year by documentaries. What the heck happened? Since 2003, each year has seen at least one monster box office winner (with over $10 million in receipts) alongside at least six other films that make more than a million dollars. But not this year. The big fish was once again served up by Michael Moore (Sicko has made more than $24 million), but the only other films in the million dollar club are the Iraq War doc No End in Sight and In the Shadow of the Moon, which chronicled NASA's Apollo Mission. (In the Shadow of the Moon can hardly be seen as a financial success considering that distributor ThinkFilm paid more than $2 million to acquire the rights to release it.)
The most common explanations I've heard from distributors and filmmakers are the following: It's cyclical (so, don't worry); There's a glut of product (so, it'll sort itself out); and all independent and/or serious fiction films are taking a hit, so docs might as well too (so, don't worry, it'll sort itself out). I've also heard rumblings that it's the distributors' fault, that they're overreaching in their marketing plans, going for too mainstream an audience. And that with so many docs released in the fall season in an attempt to capitalize on Oscar heat, the films were lost in a sea of serious fictional releases. On the other hand, I've heard counter rumblings that it's the filmmakers' faults, that the films themselves are just not up to the caliber of previous years.
Indie Lens Short Film Festival An eclectic mix of stories and storytelling with this batch of winning shorts. View. Vote. Download.
18 in '08 Nonpartisan doc and movement targeting today's 17- to 24-year-olds, many of whom will be voting in their first presidential election in 2008. Watch trailer.
YouTube: The Gilmour Boys
What happens when novelist David Gilmour lets his 15-year-old son drop out of school on the condition that they watch three movies a week together? (Via Paper Cuts)
Independent Lens: Sisters in Law In a small courthouse in Cameroon, a tough-minded state prosecutor and court president help women in their village fight abuse.
In 1937, Japan invaded the Chinese city of Nanking (now called Nanjing). They slaughtered over 200,000 civilians and committed 20,000 rapes in six weeks. The new film Nanking by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman remembers this event, also known as the rape of Nanking. Twenty-two Europeans and Americans set up a safety zone in an attempt to save as many lives as possible, and the film focuses on the group through the readings of diaries and letters written by them, recited by actors including Mariel Hemingway and Woody Harrelson. In a rave review, the Hollywood Reporter says that "...Nanking honors the highest calling of documentary filmmaking" and Film Threat notes that "[w]hile at times the film begins to feel like a laundry list of bad deeds, the first-person accounts pack a wallop."
ON DVD
Danish filmmaker Asger Leth'sGhosts of Cite Soleil is a portrait of the turbulence in Haiti during the 2004 overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his government. The main subjects of the film are two brothers who are gang leaders hired by Aristide's government as "enforcers." The film is full of chaos and violence, and blends vérité footage with newsreels. Reviews of Ghosts of Cite Soleil were deeply divided, and many reviewers noted that the film is — at different times — incoherent, intimate and explosive; the overall effect is the the film is unlike any other documentary film. The New York Daily News calls the film an "... indelible documentary, which dives into the brutal heart of a place most people would avoid at all cost, but the Guardian gave a much harsher review, calling the film "politically and morally illiterate."
Wrestling with Angels filmmaker Freida Lee Mock will be answering viewer questions as a guest blogger on the P.O.V. Blog the week of December 17th. In the meantime, get to know this Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker by downloading a podcast of the interview she did with P.O.V.'s Chris White earlier this year, or by reading a transcript of the interview on the P.O.V. website.
Get the jump on other viewers by entering your questions for her as a comment to this post.
One of the questions we're asked most often here at P.O.V. is: "What do you look for in a P.O.V. film anyway?" Every year, more than 1,000 films compete for 12-15 slots on the P.O.V. broadcast schedule, so what's a documentary filmmaker to do if she wants to fill one of those coveted slots?
Yance Ford, P.O.V.'s series producer, has been working at P.O.V. since 2002. Since then, she's screened thousands of documentaries and given input on the programming for 6 seasons of P.O.V. We asked Yance to talk a little about what she's looking for when she watches a documentary film, and solicited her advice for filmmakers hoping to place their films on P.O.V.
As a series presenting documentaries on PBS, P.O.V. holds a yearly open call, welcoming any filmmaker who is interested to submit their film for possible broadcast. And when I talk to filmmakers interested in submitting, the question I am asked most often is "What type of film does P.O.V. look for?" Thankfully, the answer is a lot less complicated than most people fear.
First of all, your film should be a documentary. We get our share of dramas and comedies and performances, but we only broadcast non-fiction film. We look for films to acquire as well as select projects where we can provide co-production support.
Strong Aesthetics, Solid Craft
Considering that documentary has evolved so much since 1988, it is important to understand that P.O.V. does not look for a single aesthetic approach to non-fiction filmmaking. P.O.V. has broadcast more than 250 films, each as varied as fingerprints, and all equally a "P.O.V." Be it the wry comic persona of Ross McElwee (Bright Leaves), the iconic images of Lourdes Portillo (Señorita Extraviada), the observational elegance of Jennifer Dworkin (Love & Diane) or the master craft of Frederick Wiseman (High School) — scroll through our online film archive and you'll see that P.O.V. embraces a diversity of approaches to filmmaking. We've aired the giants of direct cinema, experimental films, vérité films, hyrbrid docs, weird films and more; you name it, we've done it. What do these films have in common? A solid command of craft, a director with a vision for their film and a unique approach to storytelling brought together by skilled editing that brings out the best in the material. The craft standards at P.O.V. are high, and for your film to have a shot at one of the 15 available slots, it has to rise above the ordinary.
For those of you who sometimes tune into NPR during your workday, today's Talk of the Nation will feature P.O.V. filmmaker Freida Lee Mock and playwright Tony Kushner. They'll be talking about Mock's documentary film, Wrestling with Angels, at approximately 3:40 PM ET. Wrestling with Angels premieres on P.O.V. tomorrow night at 9 PM on PBS. (Check your local listings.)
Update: If you missed it live, listen to the discussion on the Talk of the Nation website anytime.
Andy Blubaugh is a young filmmaker from Portland, Oregon whose 15-minute short film, Scaredycat, will air alongside Oscar-winner Freida Lee Mock's Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner this week on PBS. An experimental documentary about the role fear plays in our lives, Scaredycat takes as a point of departure the beating of Andy at the hands of a gang of young men who called themselves "The Portland Riders."
We also noticed that Andy has an excellent website for his work, and we thought we'd also take this opportunity to ask him some questions about how he approaches promoting his work online. As the Web because an indispensable tool for film promotion and distribution, what should filmmakers be thinking about as they create a website for their work?
You have a very extensive website for your documentary work. The site includes links to iTunes (for downloading Scaredycat), a blog and much more. How important do you think having a website is for today's mediamakers?
Andy Blubaugh: The Internet is a crucial tool for independent filmmakers. I use my website to promote my work to people who have never seen my films before, to provide background information to people who might want to cover me in their newspaper or blog, and to connect with people who want to continue the conversation I am trying to spark in my filmmaking.
Just coming back from seeing Jessica Yu's (P.O.V.'s In the Realms of the Unreal) new doc Protagonist and want to know more about her other work? Rented Sicko and want to hear Michael Moore's opinions on healthcare and the '08 election? Can't stop thinking about the Grey Gardens musical you saw last season and want to know more about the Maysles brothers? You could turn to Google for help.
Want a different place to turn for insight? Turn on the (online) radio. Scores of stations around the country regularly interview doc newcomers and legend alike, and many offer the discussions on their websites for live listening or on-the-go podcast downloads. Here's a smattering for your consideration.
Each week, we'll highlight links from the "Watching" and "Reading" sidebars on the right side of the page.
WATCHING
9500 Liberty Thanks to the Utne Reader blog for pointing out this extraordinary interactive documentary that truly "elevates the immigration debate." Watch videos.
According to Variety, the best-selling book, Freakonomics, is being adapted into a documentary that will begin shooting in January for release next summer.
P.O.V. alums Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing (Boys of Baraka, P.O.V. 2006), Laura Poitras (My Country, My Country, P.O.V. 2006), and noted filmmakers Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight) and Jehane Noujaim (Control Room) have signed on to direct segments based on chapters in the book. The film will be produced by Chad Troutwine (Paris je t'aime) and Seth Gordon (The King of Kong).
Next Wednesday, December 12th, Oscar-winning director Freida Lee Mock'sWrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner airs on P.O.V. at 9 PM (check your local listings).
If you don't know Tony Kushner and his work in the theater, here's your opportunity to meet the man who has been called "the most charming dissident around." Since the breakthrough of his epic play Angels in America — subsequently made into a hit miniseries — in the early 1990s, Kushner has emerged as one of America's leading playwrights. Kushner's award-winning, ambitious plays tackle issues like AIDS, race and terrorism with sensitivity and humor, and they challenge us to engage with the moral and political issues of our times. In Wrestling with Angels, Mock follows Kushner for three tumultuous years, from September 11, 2001, up to the 2004 presidential election, to delve into the passions that keep him reaching for the great American play.
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock returns to P.O.V. on December 12th with her new film Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. In the film, Mock followed the acclaimed playwright from 2001 to 2004, documenting his creative process, his collaborations with actors, composers and directors, and his steadfast commitment to political activism.
In 1995, Freida Lee Mock won the Academy Award for her documentary film: Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision, and in her Behind the Lens interview with P.O.V. conducted earlier this year, Mock compared Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner to Maya Lin:
I look at this film as a counterpart to the Maya Lin film. Both are about artists whose works are profoundly social and political in their outreach and who have had a very profound impact on the social and political questions of our times through their work. Maya Lin did it through public memorials; Tony does it through drama and theater. They are both extremely articulate characters. Both have a certain outsider's perspective, but their impact is very much a mainstream impact. And they both have a sense of responsibility and an awareness of how they can make a difference through their work.
When the Charlie Rose Show started putting the entirety of its archives on YouTube (3,860 videos and counting), it allowed us to revisit old interviews, and get insightful peeks into the brains of some of the most intelligent, powerful and creative people in American today. Among those are some of America's greatest documentarians. Charlie Rose has been in conversations with the Spike Lee, Frederick Wiseman, Barbara Koppel and D.A. Pennebaker. Now, those conversations are just a click away.
In 1997, Rose talked to filmmaker Spike Lee and New York Times reporter Howell Raines about Lee's seminal documentary, Four Little Girls.
I want to know who will stand up to Rhode Island & remove that "awful" word "Plantation", on every l... More » susie shaw r.i. resident
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October 10, 2008
I want to know who will stand up to Rhode Island & remove that "awful" word "Plantation", on every l... More » susie shaw r.i. resident
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October 10, 2008
Hi Paul,
The quote which begins Up the Yangtze is:
By three methods may we learn wisdom:
First, by... More » Andrew Catauro
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October 10, 2008
Hi! can anyone remember that quote of Confucius in this film ? Thanks,Paul. More » Paul
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October 10, 2008
I was on a Yangtze cruise in May 2007. I was curious about the conditions of those who served us ve... More » Nancy C
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October 10, 2008
Come to a screening of Soldiers of Conscience, and learn more about conscientious objectors. Visit the KNPB local screenings page for more information.
I'm sad to report that the White Plume family, featured in 
What's in a name? Alan Berliner — whose films, including Nobody's Business and Wide Awake, have always focused on his own family and identity — tackles the subject of his own name in 
On December 12th, P.O.V. aired Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock's latest film, Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. Viewers wrote in with questions about the film for Ms. Mock via email and via blog comments. You can read 
Ah, the flush feeling of having a documentary that receives high accolades and big box office returns! As I mentioned last week, not many doc filmmakers have felt that way this year, which puts Charles Ferguson among the elite few. I was at a fancy screening and reception this week for his film 
Amazon.com's 
To the cinephile, the Criterion Collection's stamp of approval carries far greater weight than an Academy Award. The collection is a series of important classic and contemporary films on DVD. Each film chosen for inclusion is remastered and lovingly packaged with special extra features into a beautiful collector's item. 
As a series presenting documentaries on PBS, P.O.V. holds a 
Andy Blubaugh: The Internet is a crucial tool for independent filmmakers. I use my website to promote my work to people who have never seen my films before, to provide background information to people who might want to cover me in their newspaper or blog, and to connect with people who want to continue the conversation I am trying to spark in my filmmaking.
MIT academic Henry Jenkins weighs in
According to 
