August 9, 2016 | POV’s daily list of essential reading for the documentary and independent filmmaking community.

The Politics of Disco, On Film
The heyday of disco, in the nineteen-seventies, was defined by conflicts that have recently come to the fore again. The cultural advances of black people, homosexuals, women, and urban élites which challenged the mainstream presumptions of middle-class white men are the focus of some of the major offerings in Metrograph’s series “Dim All the Lights: Disco and the Movies” (Aug. 5-11).
Read more | The New Yorker

These Are Some Of The Coolest Experiments In Digital News Coverage Of The 2016 Rio Olympics
The Olympics are, like the quadrennial U.S. presidential election, the perfect opportunity for news organizations to experiment with new ways to present news online. The Games are a massive story, but the stakes are typically relatively low, and, perhaps most importantly, the date of the event is known years ahead of time. As a result, outlets have plenty of time to plan coverage and build out interactives.
Read more | Nieman Lab »

First Look at 2016 Toronto International Film Festival’s Documentary Lineup
The unrelenting drive to grab eyeballs, to ride the wave, to play the highest trump card, as it were, fuels most sectors of the media. And so it’s a relief to see that this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which runs from September 8th to 18th, and which announced its nonfiction lineup today, is not going to satiate our blood thirst for the gaffes of Donald Trump, attempt to rectify the world economy’s impending demise or bring us into the mind of an ISIS terrorist.
Read more | POV’s Documentary Blog

Locarno Film Festival 2016: João Pedro Rodrigues on The Ornithologist
The last few years have been truly a whirlwind period for Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues, with career retrospectives in the US and Japan, filmmaker residencies at France’s prestigious Le Fresnoy and at the Harvard Film Archive and more. For all that, it’s easy to forget Rodrigues hasn’t really put out a new narrative feature since 2009’s To Die Like a Man premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard sidebar – and that was only his third feature-length film in a career that started in 1996! 20 years on from that debut, Rodrigues is finally unveiling his long-awaited new work, The Ornithologist, in competition at Locarno.
Read more | Filmmaker Magazine »

Guillermo del Toro Interview: ‘At Home with Monsters’ and That Missing Sketchbook
Guillermo del Toro talks about the content of his Bleak House collection on view at LACMA, “At Home with Monsters,” his latest Criterion collection, and his upcoming movie, “The Shape of Water.”
Read more | IndieWire »

Documentary Film On Gay Talese And ‘The Voyeur’s Motel’ Wraps Filming
Here’s yet another new twist in the saga of The Voyeur’s Motel, the Gay Talese book about a voyeuristic motel owner named Gerald Foos that sold in a million-dollar screen rights auction to DreamWorks for a film that Sam Mendes might direct. While there was speculation over that film’s future after the Washington Post combed property records to discredit the motel owner’s chronology and prompted Talese to briefly disavow his own book, one movie on the project has completed principal photography. After three years in production, editing has begun on the documentary feature Gay Talese and the Voyeur.
Read more | Deadline »

Upcoming festivals and deadlines
This Week

  • Deadline: Future of Storytelling Prize 8/9
  • Open Call: Hot Docs Ted Rogers Fund 8/11

Next Week

  • Deadline: Hot Docs-Blue Ice Group Documentary Fund 8/19

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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.