June 3, 2016 | POV’s daily list of essential reading for the documentary and independent filmmaking community.

Five Questions with The Witness Director James Solomon
The murder of Kitty Genovese stunned the nation as 38 witnesses in nearby apartments stood by as she was stabbed to death by her apartment in Queens, New York. More than 50 years later, James Solomon makes his directorial debut with The Witness, a multi-layered documentary on what actually happened that fateful night in 1964.
Read more | Filmmaker »

How This Filmmaking Grant Fostered the Doc Scene for 10 Years — and Won’t Stop Anytime Soon
On Wednesday, the latest winners of the Garrett Scott Documentary Development Grant, Matt Yoka and Jonathan Olshefski, came to New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center for a sneak peak of their works-in-progress, both of which recently screened for an audience of 400 at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. Now in its tenth year, the grant awards first-time feature documentary filmmakers with both funding and networking resources to help bring documentary projects to completion.
Read more | Indiewire »

Voice-recognition technology will kill All Things Considered. Here’s what will take its place.
It’s hard to imagine our favorite shows are slowly aging and dying, but if publishers want to stay competitive in the market, they better work on their packaging. For NPR and other traditional audio and visual media outlets to survive, they will need to create content that isn’t delivered at a specific time and is not constrained to the format of a show.
Read more | Slate »

A New Grant Aims to Let Filmmakers Take Control of Distribution
Distribber, a digital distribution resource for filmmakers, and the International Documentary Association (IDA) want to hand you the reigns for your documentary’s release. The new grant will give four filmmakers the power to directly distribute their films across multiple platforms, such as iTunes, Google Play, and Netflix. The catch, however, is that you must already be receiving fiscal aid from the IDA.
Read more | No Film School »

Hawaii’s Big Island Film Festival Announces 2016 Winners
The 11th edition of the Big Island Film Festival in Hawaii ended earlier this week, so be suer to check out some of the winners from the festival.
Read more | Variety »

Snapchat redesign will combine Live Stories and Discover
Snapchat is redesigning its key Discover section for publishers, and expected to unveil the design by mid-June. The changes will meld Discover and Live Stories into one content experience and also introduce a “subscription” feature so the content is more user-specific, drawing in users that may not have a direct relationship with a particular brand.
Read more | Digiday »

Can a shift to software save the action camera giant?
While shipments of wearable action cameras steadily rose, 2015 was not a good year for GoPro in terms of its revenue, which dropped 31 percent from 2014. CEO and cofounder Nick Woodman hopes the introduction of GoPro software will usher in a new era for the company, with the newly rebranded and relaunched mobile editing apps as well as a desktop editing software.
Read more | The Verge »

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POV Staff
POV Staff
POV (a cinema term for "point of view") is television's longest-running showcase for independent non-fiction films. POV premieres 14-16 of the best, boldest and most innovative programs every year on PBS. Since 1988, POV has presented over 400 films to public television audiences across the country. POV films are known for their intimacy, their unforgettable storytelling and their timeliness, putting a human face on contemporary social issues.