POV’s 2008 lineup received a record 10 Emmy nominations, including one for a short film entitled Ars Magna in the New Approaches to News & Documentary Programming: Arts, Lifestyle & Culture category. The amazing thing about Ars Magna is that it was produced in five days as part of the International Documentary Challenge (IDC), an […]

The second film of the 2009 season is entirely in French (with English subtitles), with a slow and meditative pace — and is altogether extraordinary. Beyond Hatred, by Olivier Meyrou, begins two years after the murder of François Chenu. Three skinheads had been roaming a park in Rheims, France, looking to “do an Arab,” when […]

On Tuesday night, POV co-presented the New York premiere of The Way We Get By (which will air as a POV November special on PBS) at the IFC Center in Greenwich Village. The screening was a part of Thom Powers‘ venerable Stranger than Fiction (STF) documentary series, and capped a full New York day for […]

Filmmakers Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar were just in Washington, D.C. for a screening of Made in L.A. on Capitol Hill. This event included comments and conversation with Congresswoman Diane Watson, ?Congressman Luis Gutierrez, chair of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus’ Immigration Taskforce, Frank Sharry, founder and executive director of America’s Voice, Bill Mefford, director of […]

The Judge and the General filmmaker Patricio Lanfranco was 19 years old when General Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected Chilean president Salvadore Allende in 1973. His co-director, Elizabeth Farnsworth, had spent time filming in Chile in 1970, and some of the people she had met there were killed in the coup. Elizabeth and Patricio […]

With Election Day, filmmaker Katy Chevigny takes a look back at the events of November 2, 2004. We caught up with Chevigny last week to ask her some questions about her film and find out why she believes some steps still need to be taken to ensure a fair election on November 4, 2008. Election […]

With Critical Condition, Roger Weisberg takes an unflinching look at what it’s like to be sick and uninsured in America. He took a few minutes to answer some questions about his film and why health care and universal health insurance should be a critical issue during this election year. Critical Condition will have its broadcast […]

Chris White is POV’s director of programming & production. He spent two days at the Realscreen Summit in Washington, D.C. last week, hearing producers pitch their films at a speed pitching session. Here’s the inside scoop from a programmer’s perspective, and some tips on how to craft a successful speed pitch. As a select group […]

Environmental issues are a hot topic this election year. David Nanasi caught up with POV alum Judith Helfand (A Healthy Baby Girl, POV 1997 and True Lives 2005, and The Uprising of ’34, POV 1995) and Daniel B. Gold to hear more about what they’ve been doing to support their latest film, Everything’s Cool. Both […]

Over the years, we’ve conducted hundreds of Behind the Lens interviews with POV filmmakers. These interviews air during the broadcast of the films on PBS, and are made available as podcasts and edited interviews via the POV website. But in the interest of brevity, a lot of fascinating insights, materials and advice end up on […]

On December 12th, POV aired Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock’s latest film, Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. Viewers wrote in with questions about the film for Ms. Mock via email and via blog comments. You can read Part I of Ms. Mock’s answers here. The following is Part II of her answers to […]

Last week, POV aired Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock’s latest film, Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. Viewers wrote in with questions about the film for Ms. Mock via email and via blog comments. She’ll be answering a selection of those questions on the POV Blog this week. Question: Wrestling With Angels is about […]

Wrestling with Angels filmmaker Freida Lee Mock will be answering viewer questions as a guest blogger on the POV Blog the week of December 17th. In the meantime, get to know this Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker by downloading a podcast of the interview she did with POV’s Chris White earlier this year, or by reading a […]

For those of you who sometimes tune into NPR during your workday, today’s Talk of the Nation will feature POV filmmaker Freida Lee Mock and playwright Tony Kushner. They’ll be talking about Mock’s documentary film, Wrestling with Angels, at approximately 3:40 PM ET. Wrestling with Angels premieres on POV tomorrow night at 9 PM on […]

Andy Blubaugh is a young filmmaker from Portland, Oregon whose 15-minute short film, Scaredycat, will air alongside Oscar-winner Freida Lee Mock’s Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner this week on PBS. An experimental documentary about the role fear plays in our lives, Scaredycat takes as a point of departure the beating of Andy at the […]

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Freida Lee Mock returns to POV on December 12th with her new film Wrestling With Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner. In the film, Mock followed the acclaimed playwright from 2001 to 2004, documenting his creative process, his collaborations with actors, composers and directors, and his steadfast commitment to political activism. In 1995, Freida […]

Freida Lee Mock’s Academy Award® winning documentary, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision premiered on POV in 1996. It was 25 years ago today that the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial was dedicated in Washington D.C. On this anniversary date, we take a look back at the film, which follows a decade in the life of this […]