What’s this?!?! A documentary film being remastered and restored and re-released to theaters like it were a regular….classic film? Okay, so maybe this is not the first time, but it seems that Hearts and Minds, the 1974 Academy Award-winning doc about the Vietnam War, certainly got the royal treatment for its re-release to theaters on […]

POV series producer Yance Ford checks in from a special event honoring William Greaves in New York City. There is nothing quite as exciting as watching a master at work. For me, attending the Stranger than Fiction (STF) tribute to filmmaker William Greaves this past Tuesday was, indeed, a thrill. Stranger than Fiction, the documentary […]

Fifteen years ago, POV broadcast the documentary Silverlake Life: The View From Here by Tom Joslin and Peter Friedman. And from now until February 22, 2009, a streaming version of this groundbreaking film will be available for free on the POV website. Silverlake Life is one of several full-length films being streamed by POV. Mark […]

I love it when fictional feature filmmakers are heavily inspired by documentaries — especially such prominent ones as Gus Van Sant. His film Milk, starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the gay activist-turned politician who was killed in 1978, is a fantastic bit of fictional filmmaking with a heavy dose of nonfiction influences. First, there […]

One of my favorite bands in the 1980s, Depeche Mode, used to sing: “get the balance right.” I might be the first person to quote David Gahan in defense of the mission of the nonfiction writer (what a way to hack at my own credibility), but that’s the state I’m in. I have always tried […]

Adele Horne is the filmmaker behind The Tailenders (POV 2006), which examines missionary activity, the loss of languages around the world and global capitalism in an unusual and essayistic way. Adele, winner of the “Truer Than Fiction” Award at the 2007 Independent Spirit Awards, writes in with her thoughts on the history of essay films. […]

When the Charlie Rose Show started putting the entirety of its archives on YouTube (3,860 videos and counting), it allowed us to revisit old interviews, and get insightful peeks into the brains of some of the most intelligent, powerful and creative people in American today. Among those are some of America’s greatest documentarians. Charlie Rose […]

Fifteen films have been shortlisted for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, and not everyone’s happy about the list. Notable omissions include In the Shadow of the Moon, a rapturously reviewed film that saw NASA astronauts remembering their missions to space during the 1960s and 1970s, and The Devil Came on Horseback, the devastating and affecting […]

The International Documentary Association (IDA) is celebrating their 25th anniversary this year, and last week they announced their list of the top 25 documentary films of all time. The list was tabulated from a poll of IDA members, which number over 3,000 and include filmmakers, executives and academics. Hoop Dreams snagged the top spot from […]