"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."

The Way We Get By first aired on POV in 2009 to great acclaim. It will rebroadcast on select PBS stations (check your local listings) on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010. The film has also been nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy Award! We emailed filmmaker Aron Gaudet to catch up on all things The […]

Catherine Ryan is a three-time POV alum. Soldiers of Conscience (POV 2008) was her third film to be shown on POV. The other two are Maria’s Story (1991) and The Double Life of Ernesto Gómez Gómez (1999). She reports back from last month’s public hearing of the Truth Commission on Conscience in War that was […]

In 1996, a “dog’s age ago” in Internet time, POV launched one of our first websites entitled “Re: Vietnam | Stories Since the War.” It was conceived as a companion website to the POV/PBS broadcast of the Academy Award-winning film, Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision. On the site’s homepage, a quote from Maya Lin […]

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 […]

Gary Weimberg and Catherine Ryan produced and directed Soldiers of Conscience, which had its broadcast premiere on PBS on October 16 — but if you missed the broadcast, the full film is available online through November 30. Last month, Gary participated in a live chat hosted by PBS Engage and answered viewer questions online. Time […]

For those of you coming to this entry post-broadcast, Soldiers of Conscience is available on the POV website through November 30, 2008. Watch it now and return here afterward to enter your comments on the film. Soldiers of Conscience is not a film that tells an audience what to think, nor is it about the […]

With Soldiers of Conscience, filmmakers Catherine Ryan and Gary Weimberg confront the question of what it means for a person to kill another human being. As told through the eyes of both active military personnel and conscientious objectors, the film presents a dramatic window on the dilemma facing individual U.S. soldiers in the current Iraq […]

Three of the people who were featured in Soldiers of Conscience — Lt. Col. Pete Kilner and conscientious objectors Aidan Delgado and Joshua Casteel — will answer questions from viewers during the week following Thursday, October 16, 2008. Soldiers of Conscience airs on most PBS stations on Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 9 PM. (Schedules […]

Ack! Not another doc about Iraq! Ah yes, this Wednesday we are being treated to Full Battle Rattle, another film related to that unfortunate war we’re waging, and I’m quite sure we doc fans are soon going to be treated to more newspaper stories declaring the film DOA at the BO, relegating its fate along […]

Why can’t they just leave Errol Morris alone? I know I’m coming a little late to the conversation, but the guy makes the most sensitive, humanizing films that try to bridge our understanding of human frailty, oddity, evil and injustice. One of his films even got a guy off of death row. And he has […]

Cinematical reviews the Iraq War documentary Body of War, directed by former talk show host Phil Donahue and filmmaker Ellen Spiro. Read an interview with the filmmakers, along with Tomas Young, the Iraq War veteran who is the subject of the film, at Democracy Now! The New York Times reviewed Benson Lee‘s Planet B-Boy, a […]

Several months ago, Yance Ford recommended a series of short films about the Iraq War entitled War Torn for our online short film festival. After a little googling, I realized that the series is already available on the Web, at Channel Four’s excellent Dispatches website. So I put the DVD aside, and moved on to […]

The documentary blogosphere weighs in with reactions to the inaugural Cinema Eye Awards held last week in New York City. Our own Yance Ford offered her reaction last week. The Reeler Blog’s S.T. VanAirsdale summarizes the evening as well, calling it an evening “organized by friends for friends” and criticizing the awards for bowing to […]

As we blogged a couple weeks ago in our Arthouse Confidential post about independent theaters, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on at local arthouse cinemas around the country. If you’re lucky enough to live near one, you can take advantage of all sorts of great opportunities to see films that may be otherwise […]

The documentary winners of the 80th Annual Academy Awards were announced on Sunday night. Best Documentary Feature Taxi to the Dark Side Alex Gibney and Eva Orner Best Documentary Short Subject Freeheld Cynthia Wade and Vanessa Roth Reactions from the blogosphere are slowly trickling in. First, a shout-out to our own Tom Roston, who was […]

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. […]