On October 7, 2008, POV will air Joanna Rudnick‘s In the Family. When Joanna tested positive for the “breast cancer gene” at age 27, she knew the information could save her life. She also knew that she would have to make heart-wrenching decisions about whether or not to remove her breasts and ovaries, or risk […]

Irene Villaseñor is POV’s Youth Views manager. Youth Views is a project that works with youth, educators, and youth-serving organizations to use POV films as a tool for youth engagement. Irene writes in today to talk about how communities can organize around the 2008 POV film Election Day to reduce voter disenfranchisement, and her own […]

POV production assistant Andrew Catauro writes in with the latest news from the Tribeca Film Institute. Last night, in a new partnership with Renew Media, the Tribeca Film Institute awarded its 2008 Media Arts Fellowships at the New York Academy of Art. POV Executive Director Simon Kilmurry and I attended the ceremony honoring the recipients. […]

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 […]

One of the things that always strikes me as I watch documentaries is that the stories don’t end as the credits start to roll. After they’ve given us a glimpse into their lives, documentary subjects go on living, usually out of the spotlight — and we, the viewers who have come to care about them, […]

Now that it’s mid-April, we’re finally beginning to get a taste of spring here in New York. And that means that summer — and POV’s 21st season — are just around the corner. Today we’re taking a sneak peek at Election Day, which will have its broadcast premiere on Tuesday, July 1 at 10 PM […]

Cathy Fisher, POV’s senior manager of communications, attended a screening of the upcoming POV film Campaign at The Museum of Modern Art in New York City this past week. She writes in to tell us about her night. “People only listen to you for three seconds, so make sure you mention the candidate’s name in […]

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 […]

March is National Women’s History Month, so why not curl up with some films from the POV archives that celebrate amazing, courageous women from around the country? The women showcased in these three POV films — an African-American Congresswoman running for president; a Christian teenager from Lubbock, Texas; and an Asian-American architect — are very […]

Watching Henry Louis Gates, Jr. hosts African American Lives 2 on PBS. Reading The Color of PoliticsNew Yorker article about Cory Booker, a “mayor of the post-racial generation” and the history of Newark politics. Variety reports that Agnes Varda is working on a new “autobiographical docu feature”, Les Places d’Agnes, that will be ready for […]

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 […]

Over on the Moyers Blog this week, there is a lively debate about what one book the next occupant of the White House should bring along when he or she moves in next January. The post generated over 2,400 suggestions — and it is worth a look. The recommendations make up an eclectic list of […]

San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood has undergone a timewarp transformation over the past few days for the filming of Milk, Gus Van Sant‘s new movie based on the life and times of Harvey Milk. Milk was a 1970s-era activist and politician who was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most remarkable people of the 20th century […]

With Election Day, filmmaker Katy Chevigny takes a look back at the events of November 2, 2004. We caught up with Chevigny last week to ask her some questions about her film and find out why she believes some steps still need to be taken to ensure a fair election on November 4, 2008. Election […]

With Critical Condition, Roger Weisberg takes an unflinching look at what it’s like to be sick and uninsured in America. He took a few minutes to answer some questions about his film and why health care and universal health insurance should be a critical issue during this election year. Critical Condition will have its broadcast […]

This year, there are so many sites that feature political coverage that it can be almost as overwhelming to wade through the coverage as it is to figure out who really stands for what. Here are a few sites that do a nice job of rounding up audio and video — from news, interviews with […]

I was intrigued and troubled by David Poland’s recent blog post about the Writers Guild of America (WGA) awards. In his critique of the awards, Poland says: “Third, has anyone outside of the WGA seen the top doc vote-getter, The Camden 28? The film was release [sic] by First Look in July on 1 screen […]

By all accounts, 2007 was a great year for American films. In addition to a slate of wildly acclaimed fictional films, a number of well regarded documentaries made their way into theaters. Unfortunately, most of those documentaries didn’t fare so well at the box office. However, some of them have made it onto “Best Of” […]