In celebration of the 38th Annual News & Documentary Emmy® Awards, four of the 12 Emmy-nominated POV documentaries from last season will be available to stream online at pov.org/video. Until Monday, October 16, 2017, watch The Return, Kingdom of Shadows, Thank you for Playing and What Tomorrow Brings online or on any streaming device. Viewers can also check out POV’s wider catalogue of features and shorts available to stream. Through American Documentary’s Community Network, you can find details about free screenings of films that aren’t currently available online, as well as educational materials and additional information.
Here’s a preview of the four Emmy-nominated films on pov.org/video and all streaming devices:
Thank You for Playing (Nominated for Best Documentary)
When Ryan Green, a video game programmer, learns that his young son Joel has cancer, he and his wife begin documenting their emotional journey with a poetic video game. Thank You for Playing follows Ryan and his family over two years creating “That Dragon, Cancer,” which evolves from a cathartic exercise into a critically acclaimed work of art that sets the gaming industry abuzz. Lauded as “unimaginably intimate” by The New Yorker, the film is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the unique ways that art and technology can help us share profound experiences. A co-production of American Documentary | POV and ITVS. Thank you for Playing was included in the Official Selection of the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.
The Return (Nominated for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary)
In 2012, California amended its “Three Strikes” law — one of the harshest criminal sentencing policies in the country. The passage of Prop. 36 marked the first time in U.S. history that citizens voted to shorten sentences of those currently incarcerated. Within days, the reintegration of thousands of “lifers” was underway. The Return examines this unprecedented reform through the eyes of those on the front lines — prisoners suddenly freed, families turned upside down, reentry providers helping navigate complex transitions and attorneys and judges wrestling with an untested law. At a moment of reckoning on mass incarceration, what can California’s experiment teach the nation? A co-production of American Documentary | POV and ITVS. A co-presentation with the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC). The Return was part of the Official Selection of the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.
What Tomorrow Brings (Nominated for Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary)
What Tomorrow Brings goes inside the very first girls’ school in a small Afghan village. Never before have fathers here allowed their daughters to be educated; now Taliban threats heighten their misgivings. From the school’s beginnings in 2009 to its first graduating class in 2015, the film traces the interconnected stories of students, teachers, village elders, parents and school founder Razia Jan. While the girls learn to read and write, their education goes far beyond the classroom as they discover the differences between the lives they were born into and the lives they dream of leading. A co-production of ITVS.
The Look of Silence (Nominated for Outstanding Investigative Documentary)
Joshua Oppenheimer’s Oscar®-nominated The Look of Silence is the incredible story of a man confronting his brother’s killers and demanding they accept responsibility for their crimes. Adi, an optometrist who survived the 1965 Indonesian genocide, takes this unimaginable step in a society where murderers remain in power. To break the spell of submission and terror, he forces them, and us, to reckon with his country’s dark history. A companion piece to Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing, also an Oscar nominee and POV film, The Look of Silence has been hailed as a “masterpiece” by The New York Times for bearing witness to the collapse of 50 years of silence. The Look of Silence won the Grand Jury Prize, the Critics Prize and Human Rights Award at the 2014 Venice Film Festival.
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