This week, we take a look at the upcoming Silverdocs lineup, catch up on news from past POV films and offer a sneak peek at the upcoming POV season!
Silverdocs, the venerable documentary festival in Silver Spring, Maryland, just announced its 2010 festival lineup. Among the films that will be screened at the festival are the highly-anticipated Freakonomics and Doug Block‘s The Kids Grow Up. Upcoming POV films that will screen at Silverdocs include Wo Ai Ni (I Love You) Mommy by Stephanie Wang-Breal, which will air on POV on August 31; Presumed Guilty by Geoffrey Smith and Roberto Hernández (July 27 on POV); My Perestroika by Robin Hessman (POV 2011); and Last Train Home by Lixin Fan (POV 2011). Silverdocs runs from June 21-27.
On the Huffington Post, Abby L. Ferber interviews Holly Fulton, who was involved in POV’s Traces of the Trade (2008). Holly was one of the descendants of the largest slave trading family in U.S. history, and went on a journey with filmmaker Katrina Browne to retrace the slave trade. She talks about the film, white privilege, and what some of the responses to the film have been.
Did you catch Revolution ’67, which takes a look at the Newark Riots of 1967, when it aired on POV in 2007? If you’re an educator in the New York area, you can attend a screening of the film at the Museum of the City of New York on June 2, 2010. The filmmakers, Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno and Jerome Bongiorno, will be on hand to discuss the film after it screens.
Joanna Rudnick, the filmmaker and subject of the moving In the Family, which aired in 2009 on POV, is profiled by The Progressive magazine. Unfortunately, the article is only available online to subscribers, but check out The Progressive on newsstands to find out how her film helped spur a landmark court victory in the fight against genetic patenting.
Libby, Montana (POV 2007) told the heartbreaking story of a community devastated by asbestos from a nearby mine that employed much of the town. The Associated Press recently visited Libby and talked to Gayla Benefield, one of the subjects of the film who watched her family and friends die from breathing asbestos into their lungs. Gayla answered questions from POV viewers on our website in 2007, and has been working as an asbestos activist. Unfortunately, the AP article makes clear that the residents of Libby are still living a nightmare: no one has gone to jail for what happened in Libby, and community members — including kids — continue to be diagnosed with asbestos scarring.
Finally, join us on Facebook to see a sneak peek of the 2010 POV season and our new opening sequence. We have a great slate of films that will broadcast on PBS this summer and fall. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say about them!