POV's daily list of essential reading for the documentary and independent filmmaking community.

As dreamlike and terrifying as anything that Werner Herzog (one of the executive producers) could imagine. Watch The Act of Killing, Monday on PBS.

Of the Oscar-nominated documentaries this year, only one is directed by a woman (Jehane Noujaim, of The Square).

"I’m not saying we owe Michael Moore an apology for the way he was derided for his speech after winning the Academy Award 10 years ago, but I think we can at least acknowledge that he was right."

Twelve stories from 2012 that inspired, thrilled and surprised us. A recap of the year in documentary news.

Watch The Oath online during Sept. 2011 on the POV website, and join a live chat about post-9/11 documentaries with Academy Award-nominated director Laura Poitras September 12 at 2 PM ET (11 AM PT).

Let’s be totally reductive for a moment, and say that there are two kinds of documentary-lovers: those who enjoy watching the Oscars and those who don’t. I am very much the former, and often when I bring up my interest in the Academy Awards, I am slapped around for my interest in such commercial puffery. […]

What ever happened to the boys — now, men — from Hoop Dreams? Where did Little Edie, now deceased, end up after Grey Gardens? Are any of those old guys from Brother’s Keeper still kicking? If you have ever found yourself asking any of these, or similar, questions, then I’m here to help. I want […]

The Best Documentary Short award is probably the least watched, least understood and least appreciated category at the Academy Awards. Okay, maybe it’s tied with Best Sound Editing. Still, that’s too bad. Fortunately, some of the winners have made the most of this underdog status in their speeches, such as when Jessica Yu joked in […]

Over on the Thompson on Hollywood blog today, there is a three-part video interview with filmmaker Robert Kenner about his goals for Food, Inc., the difficulties he encountered in making the film, and his hope that the film will “make all of us think about it because that’s what’s going to change the system.” Check […]

It’s head-scratching season again, which is to say: it’s Oscar time. Last week, the shortlist of 15 documentaries being considered for the five Academy Award nominations was announced. And, sure enough, there were some head-scratchers out there. The most confounding was the exclusion of Michael Moore‘s Capitalism. Sure, this further confirms what I said a […]

So it turns out, to the surprise of very few people, that Man on Wire IS the doc of the year. As our own Tom Roston predicted last week, Man on Wire won the best documentary award at last night’s Oscars. (It also won Best Doc at the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday.) The win […]

Academy Award forecasting is such fun. I wish I could put together a chart with the various factors that I see determining the film with the best odds of winning the doc Oscar this year. Without a graphics department on my side, I’ll just mention the main variables: quality of film (yes, that matters!), popularity […]

Oscar is coming! The nominees were announced late last week and I am sure my POV minders are psyched to see one of their own on the list of five: Ellen Kuras‘ The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), which will be broadcast on PBS in 2009, joins: Encounters at the End of the World, Werner Herzog The Garden, […]

So, as you heard here and probably elsewhere, the 15-film short list to be considered for the Oscar nomination for best documentary was announced last week. All I can do here now is throw out a big GULP; boy, was I wrong. In September, I cranked out my prognostications about what would be on the […]

Congratulations to all the filmmakers on the 15-film shortlist for the Oscar for Best Documentary! Upcoming POV film The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), by Ellen Kuras, which will air on PBS in 2009, was among the films included. In January 2008, the POV Blog followed Ellen as she spent a day at the Sundance Film Festival, where […]

The Oscar nominations were announced this morning in Los Angeles. Here’s the list for documentary film. BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE NO END IN SIGHT Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs OPERATION HOMECOMING: WRITING THE WARTIME EXPERIENCE Richard E. Robbins SICKO Michael Moore and Meghan O’Hara TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE Alex Gibney and Eva Orner WAR/DANCE Andrea […]

Ah, the doc world never sleeps. There I was, slowly plotting my next blog post about the January 12 deadline for submitting Oscar nomination ballots: I was going to make an 11th hour pitch for Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, the fantastic doc based on writings by U.S. soldiers in Iraq by Richard Robbins. […]