Freelance writer Amanda Hirsch, former editorial director of PBS Interactive, blogs about documentaries and the Web in her column, Outside the Frame, published every other Wednesday. It’s that time of year again. No, I’m not referring to Christmas, or “the holidays.” Nor am I referring to the winter solstice, New Years or festive binge drinking. […]

Yung Chang is the director of Up the Yangtze, which aired on POV on October 8, 2008. After the broadcast, many viewers wrote with questions for Yung. Read on for Yung’s responses to some of the questions he received. Loree asks: You must have made a deep emotional connection with all the people in your […]

Sixteen-year-old “Cindy” Yu Shui, the daughter of an illiterate farmer, dreams of pursing her education and becoming a scientist, despite her family’s poverty. But as the rising waters of the Yangtze River begin to displace her family’s hut, she leaves home to take a job on a cruise ship on the Yangtze River, washing dishes […]

Up the Yangtze takes a close look at the effects of the construction of China’s Three Gorges Dam, which is altering the landscape and the lives of people living along the fabled Yangtze River. Filmmaker Yung Chang shows us both the bigger picture — the transformation of the river by the biggest hydroelectric dam in […]

IN THEATERS Werner Herzog‘s Encounters at the End of the World opened in limited release on June 11. The film follows Herzog’s travels in Antarctica, from the 1,100-person community of McMurdo Station, to the Ross Sea, to the Erebus volcano, capturing as many of nature’s sights as possible. Encounters at the End of the World […]

Up the Yangtze, a new documentary about the impact of the Three Gorges Dam project in China by Canadian filmmaker Yung Chang, opens in New York City at the IFC Center tomorrow. The film has won numerous awards on the festival circuit and received much critical acclaim for its moving and powerful portrayal of contemporary […]

In light of Earth Day yesterday, the environment is on everyone’s minds. Or is it? How prominent are environmental stories the day after Earth Day? There’s no shortage of docs sounding the environmental crisis alarm. By all accounts we’re half way to Armageddon, with the environmental situation so precarious only the swiftest about-face in energy […]

Did you know that Earth Day was first officially observed throughout the United States in 1970? Thanks to Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, more than 20 million Americans organized massive rallies and demonstrations for a healthier, sustainable environment, protesting against massive oil spills, industrial pollution, and the loss of wilderness areas in what would become […]

This weekend, the documentary The Unforeseen will begin trickling into theaters. On the surface, it’s about urban sprawl in Austin, Texas. It traces the history of the booming growth of that city, and the tensions that arose between developers and environmentalists trying to protect a natural spring-fed watering hole called Barton Springs. As a piece […]

Earlier this month, I attended the Film Your Issue launch party at the United Nations. I first heard about Film Your Issue (FYI) from our partners at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. For the past five years we’ve worked with their American Democracy Project, to support them in accomplishing the goal of […]

If you’re in New York City, check out MoMA’s annual showcase of international documentary films from February 13-March 3. This year’s Documentary Fortnight features more than 30 films, with a special focus on docs about the environment, covering a whole range of topics from graffiti in New York to the problems of chemical sensitivities. Another […]

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 […]

WATCHING e2 A PBS series about the economics of being environmentally conscious. Beyond the Multiplex: The Year’s Best Docs Critics from Salon.com and IFC take a look at Oscar-worthy documentaries. READING The 100 Greatest Websites EW lists their favorite movie and TV websites Nerakhoon: The Betrayal Director Ellen Kuras indieWire interviews veteran DP and first-time […]

Watching The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965 POV Film ScreeningsNext week: Waging a Living in Burtonsville, Maryland. New Yorker: Naked Campaign ShortsIllustrator Steve Brodner draws the candidates. Reading A New Award for Nonfiction Filmmaker and blogger AJ Schnack announces the birth of a new award for […]

The Film Independent’s 2008 Spirit Award nominees were announced on Tuesday, and quite a few of the docs (in both the Best Documentary category and the Truer Than Fiction category) are already available on DVD. Here’s your chance to check out some of the nominated films well before the winners are announced on February 23, […]

The nominations for the 2008 Film Independent Spirit Awards were announced on Monday morning by ceremony hosts Zach Braff and Lisa Kudrow in Los Angeles. The Spirit Awards celebrate independent (and low budget) filmmaking. Eligible films must be at least 70 minutes long, and the cost of the completed film, including post-production, must be under […]

Thanksgiving: a time for family, food, more food and for some, football. But for those of us who aren’t interested in football but still keen to sit on the couch and watch TV while digesting our turkey, there are a number of recent food-related documentaries that are both entertaining and provocative. from Our Daily Bread […]

In honor of Thanksgiving, I took a spin around YouTube this weekend to see whether there were any good cooking or food-related videos worth watching. The first video I stumbled across was produced by a group called Cooking Up a Story. They have been producing videos and posting them on YouTube since May of last […]