Doc Soup Man Tom Roston asks the question "Have you wondered where magazine stories end and documentaries begin?"

Ask anyone what they think of when you mention his name, and they'll refer to the Ken Burns Effect, that technique he employs in all his films whereby the camera pans over sideways and then zooms in.

POV's 24th season continues with the U.S. broadcast premiere of Sweetgrass, a riveting and poetic portrait of the American West just as one of its traditional ways of life dies out, Tuesday, July 5, 2011, on PBS.

Jamie Dobie is POV’s community engagement and education coordinator. She reports from the DOC NYC “State of the Industry” panel that took place on Wednesday, November 3, where she found a lively discussion about social media and engaging communities.   The First Annual DOC NYC opened its doors Wednesday afternoon to documentary professionals and an […]

There’s something rotten in the house of docs, or so it was declared at last week’s Independent Filmmaker Conference panel discussion entitled "Cage Match: Filmmaking or Social Activism?," expertly moderated by POV’s very own Yance Ford. Ford kicked things off with the question, "Is the medium in an identity crisis?" And panelist Nick Fraser, of […]

Joaquin Phoenix with David Letterman in 2009. This week, actor Joaquin Phoenix will go on the Late Show and he and David Letterman are going to share some laughs. They will wink and nudge and roll their eyes, indicating that they are being sincerely ironic about the sincerity of what they are talking about — […]

Power. It’s an elusive term. There is real power — the power to control the world around you, to do what you want, and then there are the different ways that we perceive power &mdash as in wealth, fame or influence. Is there such a thing as power in the documentary film industry? In this […]

I know. You’d think I’d post something about the major doc happenings this week: POV airing Food, Inc. (Wednesday, April 21 at 9:00 pm – check local listings) and the kick-off of the Tribeca Film Fest. I might get to those later, but for now I can’t help it — I’ve got an itch and […]

We’re doomed! I’m not even talking about that mess up in Massachusetts. I’m talking big-time, end-of-civilization, DOOMED. That, at least, is the message delivered by Collapse, a documentary that came out last year, directed by Chris Smith (The Yes Men, American Movie). The film got limited attention, and can now be see on movies-on-demand on […]

Now in its 5th year, The International Documentary Challenge returns to the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto. This year’s challenge takes place March 4 – 8, 2010 with registration now open. The Doc Challenge is a fun and innovative competition that will push your documentary skills to the limit. If you’re new […]

Students in the MFA Documentary Program at Hofstra University in Hempsted, New York, have been screening POV films this semester. MFA candidate Stefani Saintonge shares some of the highlights of the series so far. This semester, the MFA Documentary Program at Hofstra University is hosting a series of POV screenings. As a student of the […]

Leave it to The New York Times to fail to get the facts straight. Or, rather, to presume that there’s such a thing as an immutable fact and that its journalists have the rarified ability to relay facts without prejudice. No documentary filmmaker worth his or her salt would ever make such a claim, but […]

For those of you unfamiliar with the D-Word, it is a unique online community of over 2400 documentary professionals from over 78 countries who share information and resources on all things documentary, including creative, business, technical, and social topics. D-Word was started began as a series of online journal entries by filmmaker Doug Block depicting […]