POV launches ‘Snapchat Films’ series with two Snapchat-native documentaries available for viewing for 24 hours each this month: ‘We’ll Still Be Here’ by Lizzie Jacobs and ‘The Way It Should Be’ by Terence Nance and Chanelle Aponte Pearson
New York, NY, Oct. 19, 2016 – The acclaimed PBS documentary series POV, which has been merging online technology and nonfiction storytelling since the early 1990s, has produced two short films for distribution on Snapchat Discover, in partnership with the short-form digital content creator NowThis, it was announced today by American Documentary, Inc., the parent company of POV. This is the first time that documentary films will appear in Snapchat Discover.
POV’s Snapchat Films series launches with the Snapchat-native films “We’ll Still Be Here” (Sunday, Oct. 23), about dominoes players keeping their beloved game alive while a neighborhood changes around them, by Lizzie Jacobs; and “The Way It Should Be” (Sunday, Oct. 30), a story of love and friendship as lived and told by queer women of color, by Terence Nance and Chanelle Aponte Pearson.
The films will each be available exclusively on the NowThis channel in Snapchat’s Discover section for a 24-hour window. Viewers must download the Snapchat app from Apple’s App Store or the Google Play Store to view the films.
The Snapchat Films series continues POV’s tradition of presenting contemporary stories that express perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media and promoting dialogue around critical social issues.
“In the mid-1990s, it was AOL, email and chat applications; in the 2000s it was web series; today it’s Snapchat,” said POV Digital Executive Producer Adnaan Wasey. “Robust social media platforms like Snapchat offer an exciting means to tell new kinds of stories and engage a new audience. We’re excited to not only be able to show the filmmaking community what’s possible, but also to do it alongside teams of ambitious independent filmmakers with a history of breaking new ground. And we’re thrilled to have developed the project with NowThis, an organization that has been a continuous pioneer in online media.”
“We are so thrilled to showcase these short films to our audience in a new and innovative way,” said Sarah Frank, editor of NowThis. “Providing young storytellers a direct path to an audience is something that emerging platforms like Snapchat can uniquely do, and we are proud to feature these alongside NowThis stories.”
Snap to open NowThis on Snapchat Discover
or visit https://www.snapchat.com/discover/NowThis/8418913840
Since its founding in the late 1980s, POV has been a leader in demonstrating how public media can use new technology to engage audiences and tell new kinds of stories. POV created PBS’s first program website (pov.org) and its first web-based documentary (the Webby-Award winning POV’s Borders), and more recently, through its POV Digital Labs, POV has incubated dozens of digital projects that have received funding and boast high viewership and nominations from the Webby Awards and Emmy Awards.
POV’s digital endeavors include an exploration into interactive storytelling about race with The New York Times (pov.org/nyt), the weekend media incubator POV Digital Lab touring three cities in September and October (pov.org/lab), and streaming more than 100 independent documentary films at pov.org/video as part of its 2016 digital season, including a focus on women filmmakers (pov.org/100).
POV’s Snapchat Films series is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and PBS.
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About the Filmmakers:
Chanelle Aponte Pearson is a Bronx-bred, Brooklyn-based visual artist and filmmaker. In 2015, the Gotham Awards and IFP awarded her the euphoria Calvin Klein Spotlight on Women Directors “Live the Dream” grant for the narrative series 195 LEWIS. The pilot episode first screened at the 2014 BlackStar Film Festival and had its international premiere at the 2016 International Film Festival at Rotterdam. Pearson is also a producer of the critically acclaimed feature film An Oversimplification of Her Beauty (dir. Terence Nance), which premiered in the New Frontier section at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. As chief operating officer of MVMT, she oversees the management and operations of the Brooklyn-based film production company.
Lizzie Jacobs is a Peabody and duPont award-winning writer and producer. She spent nearly a decade as an editor and producer for StoryCorps, the nonprofit oral history project, where she had a hand in shaping several key aspects of its work: as founding producer for StoryCorps Animated Shorts, broadcast by POV on PBS; as editor of its books with The Penguin Press, many of them The New York Times Bestsellers; and as producer of radio broadcasts for NPR’s Morning Edition. These days, Jacobs is an independent artist and storyteller working across media, including penning profiles for Mental_Floss and producing the new arts podcast Make/Time. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Williams College and a master’s degree in creative writing from The New School. Her best works, Ruby and Henry, are still in progress.
Terence Nance, a performance artist, filmmaker, musician, photographer and faculty member of the MFA in Film at Vermont College of Fine Arts, was awarded a 2014 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Creative Arts. His first feature film, An Oversimplification of Her Beauty, is an IFP Narrative lab alumnus, premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and went on to play at over 50 film festivals worldwide. The film was acquired for theatrical distribution by Variance Films and is available on DVD and digital release by Cinema Guild. The film’s critical success prompted The New York Times to name Nance one of its “20 Directors to Watch” and Filmmaker magazine to name him one of “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” He resides in Brooklyn and is developing his second narrative feature, The Lobbyists. Nance is also directing a verité film on global skin-bleaching called So Young So Pretty So White and is developing an installation about intimacy titled Day.
About NowThis Media:
NowThis is a world leader in mobile video content creation with over 2 billion monthly views across multiple digital platforms. NowThis tells deeply human, personal stories that move. The company operates over 30 content verticals on various social channels, delivering over 60 unique visual stories per day. NowThis produces on demand video news, live broadcasts and original scripted programming customized for specific platforms and audiences. NowThis Studios allows advertisers to harness the creative, insights and platform expertise to develop custom branded content that connects with a hard to reach, socially-fueled young audience.
About POV Digital:
Since 1994, POV Digital has driven new storytelling initiatives and interactive production for POV. The department created PBS’s first program website and its first web-based documentary (POV’s Borders) and has won major awards, including a Webby Award (and six nominations) and an Online News Association Award. POV Digital continues to explore the future of independent nonfiction media through its digital productions and the POV Digital Labs, where media makers and technologists collaborate to reinvent storytelling forms. @povdocs on Twitter.
About POV:
Produced by American Documentary, Inc., POV is public television’s premier showcase for nonfiction films. Since 1988, POV has been the home for the world’s boldest contemporary filmmakers, celebrating intriguing personal stories that spark conversation and inspire action. Always an innovator, POV discovers fresh new voices and creates interactive experiences that shine a light on social issues and elevate the art of storytelling. With our documentary broadcasts, original online programming and dynamic community engagement campaigns, we are committed to supporting films that capture the imagination and present diverse perspectives.
POV films have won 34 Emmy® Awards, 19 George Foster Peabody Awards, 12 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards®, the first-ever George Polk Documentary Film Award and the Prix Italia. The POV series has been honored with a Special News & Documentary Emmy Award for Excellence in Television Documentary Filmmaking, three IDA Awards for Best Curated Series and the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) Award for Corporate Commitment to Diversity. Learn more: www.pbs.org/pov.
Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Corporation for Public Broadcasting and National Endowment for the Arts. Additional funding comes from Nancy Blachman and David desJardins, Bertha Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, The Fledgling Fund, Marguerite Casey Foundation, Ettinger Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee, and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.
