Acclaimed musician Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong was the subject of not one, but two POV films over the years, Louie Bluie (1988) by Terry Zwigoff and Sweet Old Song (2002) by Leah Mahan. Armstrong passed away at the age of 94 in 2003. He would have celebrated his 100th birthday today. Over the course of […]

Acclaimed musician Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong was the subject of not one, but two POV films over the years, Louie Bluie (1988) by Terry Zwigoff and Sweet Old Song (2002) by Leah Mahan. Armstrong passed away at the age of 94 in 2003. He would have celebrated his 100th birthday today. Louie Bluie premiered on […]

Acclaimed musician Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong is renowned for a lifetime of jazz, blues, folk and country music. Armstrong was the subject of not one, but two POV films over the years, Louie Bluie (1988) by Terry Zwigoff and Sweet Old Song (2002) by Leah Mahan. Armstrong’s roots in America’s musical past, his accomplished musicianship […]

Acclaimed musician Howard “Louie Bluie” Armstrong is renowned for a lifetime of jazz, blues, folk and country music. Armstrong was the subject of not one, but two POV films over the years, Louie Bluie (1988) by Terry Zwigoff and Sweet Old Song (2002) by Leah Mahan. Armstrong’s roots in America’s musical past, his accomplished musicianship […]

You’ve heard me talk about it before, but, finally, Ellen Kuras‘ The Betrayal is making it to the public this Friday, at the IFC Film Center so forgive me if I have little more to say. The movie, 23 years in the making, is about a Laotian immigrant family’s experience in America; after its opening […]

Every Monday, independent journalist Tom Roston checks in and writes about the world of documentaries in his column, Doc Soup. This week, POV is airing 1969’s Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music, a real time capsule of a documentary about the legendary country musician. I am particularly struck by how director Robert Elstrom […]

On August 5th, POV will air Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music by Robert Elfstrom. Here’s a sneak peek. In this classic 1969 documentary, the Man in Black is captured at his peak, the first of many in a looming roller-coaster career. Fresh on the heels of his Folsom Prison album, Cash reveals […]

We’re happy to announce that the winner of the POV Film Your Issue award is Brandan Odums‘s New Orleans for Sale, a film that decries suffering as a tourist draw in post-Katrina New Orleans. Watch the video: Odums is a 22-year old New Orleans college student who is part of a young filmmaking collective called […]

Eric Daniel Metzgar, along with Nell Carden Grey, directed The Chances of the World Changing, which aired on POV in 2007. The film, a beautiful meditation on an individual’s efforts to change the world, follows Richard Ogust, who shared his Manhattan loft with 1,200 turtles and dedicated his life to rescuing the endangered animals. Viewer […]

There’s something that irks me when I see these giant full-page ads in The New York Times like the recent ones that have been promoting the Rolling Stones, Martin Scorsese, and the recent rock doc, Shine a Light. When big-time feature directors make docs, the amount of attention they get is just a little bit […]

This past week was a busy one in the doc world. The Full Frame Documentary Festival took place in North Carolina; Young@Heart, the first documentary acquired by distribution company Fox Searchlight in a decade was released to wide acclaim; and the upcoming release of his Standard Operating Procedure has Errol Morris all over the news. […]

The hot theatrical doc season begins! The month of April sees two much-anticipated documentaries being released, Errol Morris‘ Standard Operating Procedure (on April 25) and Morgan Spurlock‘s Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? (on April 18). Although both of these are from A-list filmmakers, these two documentaries have a lot stacked against them […]

Felix Endara is the Filmmaker Services Coordinator at Arts Engine, an organization that produces and supports independent media — including Arctic Son (POV 2007), and the upcoming 2008 POV film Election Day. Felix is also the coordinator of DocuClub, a screening series which provides the opportunity for filmmakers to receive feedback while they’re in the […]

Last week, Regal Cinemas announced that the chain will double the number of IMAX theaters that it runs nationwide, adding another 31 large-format screens by 2010. That will bring the total of IMAX screens in Regal theaters to 52. The IMAX format is mostly known for its sometimes cheesy fare, space and oceanic adventures, and […]

IN THEATERS From The Unforeseen Laura Dunn‘s The Unforeseen, executive produced by Terrence Malick and Robert Redford, tells the story of massive real estate developments near Austin, Texas and their impact on the environment. The film, called “part straight-ahead land-war documentary and part elegiac contemplation of the earth and what humans do to it” by […]

In Brooklyn, there’s a summer day-camp called the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls. That’s right. Girls from eight to eighteen learn to write songs, play instruments, and to “rock out.” Just like School of Rock — but for girls only. And indeed, music has such a wide appeal — why should rocking out be […]

I laughed out loud when I read Tom’s February 15 Doc Soup column — a top 10 list of the “sexiest” documentaries of all time — the words “sexy” and “documentary” don’t often get mentioned in the same breath (ever?) around the POV office. I have to admit that I later worried that readers might […]

Kurt Cobain would have turned 41 yesterday. The Nirvana frontman wasn’t even 30 years old when he died in 1994, but songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” were practically anthems for the 90s. And whether the timing was a deliberate act of commemoration or sheer coincidence, AJ Schnack‘s Kurt Cobain: About a Son (first released […]