Watch trailers for the first set of films that will air on POV in 2014 »
POV (Point of View), American television’s longest-running independent documentary series, recently announced the first part of its 27th season on PBS (June 23-Aug. 18, 2014). Today, POV unveils the second part of its regular season, Aug. 25-Sept. 22, along with a special broadcast of the Academy Award®-nominated The Act of Killing in fall 2014 (date/time to be announced). POV airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings).
The regularly scheduled films are Big Men, a tour of the high-powered world of African oil deals that The New York Times described as “astonishing”; After Tiller, which goes inside the lives of physicians providing late abortions; The Genius of Marian, where a family confronts early-onset Alzheimer’s; and Koch, about the New York mayor people loved and loathed—often in equal measure—the one and only Ed Koch. In the fall, POV presents the most honored documentary of 2013, The Act of Killing, in which Indonesian paramilitary leaders are challenged to dramatize their roles in genocide, resulting in a shocking cinematic fever dream that goes deep into the imaginations of mass murderers.
POV 2014 Schedule, July 21, August 25-Fall 2014
View the schedule for June-August 2014 »
(Additional regularly scheduled programs and specials to be announced. Programs air Mondays at 10 p.m.; check local listings):
July 21 – StoryCorps Animated Short: A Good Man by The Rauch Brothers #agoodman
Bryan Wilmoth and his seven younger siblings were raised in a strict, religious home. In this StoryCorps Animated Short, he talks to his brother Mike about reconnecting years after their dad kicked Bryan out for being gay.
August 25 – Big Men by Rachel Boynton #bigmen
Over five years, director Rachel Boynton and her cinematographer film the quest for oil in Ghana by Dallas-based Kosmos. The company develops the country’s first commercial oil field, yet its success is quickly compromised by political intrigue and accusations of corruption. As Ghanaians wait to reap the benefits of oil, the filmmakers discover violent resistance down the coast in the Niger Delta, where poor Nigerians have yet to prosper from decades-old oil fields. Big Men, executive produced by Brad Pitt, provides an unprecedented inside look at the global deal making and dark underside of energy development—a contest for money and power that is reshaping the world.
September 1 – After Tiller by Martha Shane and Lana Wilson #aftertiller
After Tiller is a deeply humanizing and probing portrait of the four doctors in the United States still openly performing third-trimester abortions in the wake of the 2009 assassination of Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas—and in the face of intense protest from abortion opponents. It is also an examination of the desperate reasons women seek late abortions. Rather than offering solutions, After Tiller presents the complexities of these women’s difficult decisions and the compassion and ethical dilemmas of the doctors and staff who fear for their own lives as they treat their patients.
September 8 – The Genius of Marian by Banker White and Anna Fitch #thegeniusofmarian
The Genius of Marian is a visually rich, emotionally complex story about one family’s struggle to come to terms with Alzheimer’s disease. After Pam White is diagnosed at age 61 with early-onset Alzheimer’s, life begins to change, slowly but irrevocably, for Pam and everyone around her. Her husband grapples with his role as it evolves from primary partner to primary caregiver. Pam’s adult children find ways to show their love and support while mourning the gradual loss of their mother. Her eldest son, Banker, records their conversations, allowing Pam to share memories of childhood and of her mother, the renowned painter Marian Williams Steele, who had Alzheimer’s herself and died in 2001.
September 22 – Koch by Neil Barsky #koch
New York City mayors have a world stage on which to strut, and they have made legendary use of it. Yet few have matched the bravado, combativeness and egocentricity that Ed Koch brought to the office during his three terms from 1978 to 1989. As Neil Barsky’s Koch recounts, Koch was more than the blunt, funny man New Yorkers either loved or hated. Elected in the 1970s during the city’s fiscal crisis, he was a new Democrat for the dawning Reagan era—fiscally conservative and socially liberal. Koch finds the former mayor politically active to the end (he died in 2013)—still winning the affection of many New Yorkers while driving others to distraction.
Fall 2014 – The Act of Killing by Joshua Oppenheimer #theactofkilling
In fall 2014 POV presents a special broadcast (date and time to be announced). Nominated for an Academy Award®, The Act of Killing is as dreamlike and terrifying as anything that Werner Herzog (one of the executive producers) could imagine. This film explores a horrifying era in Indonesian history and provides a window into modern Indonesia, where corruption reigns. Not only is the 1965 murder of an estimated one million people honored as a patriotic act, but the killers remain in power. In a mind-bending twist, death-squad leaders dramatize their brutal deeds in the style of the American westerns, musicals and gangster movies they love—and play both themselves and their victims. As their heroic facade crumbles, they come to question what they’ve done.
POV’s Complete 2014 Season Schedule – Mondays, Starting June 23, 2014
- When I Walk – June 23, 2014
- American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs – June 30, 2014
- My Way to Olympia – July 7, 2014
- Getting Back to Abnormal – July 14, 2014
- Dance for Me – July 21, 2014
- Bryan and Mike Wilmoth – July 21, 2014
- Fallen City – July 28, 2014
- 15 to Life: Kenneth’s Story – August 4, 2014
- Neurotypical – August 11, 2014 (Encore)
- A World Not Ours – August 18, 2014
- Big Men – August 25, 2014
- After Tiller – September 1, 2014
- The Genius of Marian – September 8, 2014
- Koch – September 22, 2014
- The Act of Killing – 2014 Fall Special Presentation
Read the press release with more information about POV’s 2014 season »
Visit POV’s pressroom for images from 2014 films and more »
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