The June 19 premiere of The Reckoning at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival was a great success. The film played to a packed house full of luminaries, including many of the people featured in the film like Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz, attorney Christine Chung and the deputy prosecutor for prosecutions of the ICC […]

Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North chronicles a unique and disturbing journey into the history and legacy of the U.S. slave trade. The documentary tracks what happens as filmmaker Katrina Browne comes to grips with the discovery that her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history. Her […]

Bill Moyers Journal previewed POV’s Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North last Friday on most PBS stations. Moyers examines racial inequality in America through the prisms of the legacy of slavery and the current socio-economic landscape, and interviews Douglas Blackmon of the Wall Street Journal, historical and cultural sociologist Orlando Patterson […]

Two major festivals have been taking place over the past two weeks, making June a time for a real feast for documentary lovers in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas. The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival runs through June 26 at Lincoln Center. The festival showcases films from the U.S. and around the […]

Tom DeWolf is filmmaker Katrina Browne‘s cousin and the author of Inheriting the Trade, the unique story of his experiences during the making of Traces of the Trade, which airs on POV on June 24th (check your local listings). In 2001, Tom was astounded to discover that he was related to the most successful slave-trading […]

When Katrina Browne discovered that her New England ancestors were the largest slave-trading family in U.S. history, she embarked on a journey with nine fellow descendants to retrace the Triangle Trade, from Rhode Island to Ghana to Cuba and back. They uncover the vast extent of Northern complicity in slavery while also stumbling through the […]

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 […]

Have you been looking for a reason to take a trip to upstate New York this weekend? Look no further — here’s the perfect opportunity to see a great film in one of the prettiest towns in the region. Katrina Browne’s Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North will have a special […]

Get ready to park yourself on the couch on Tuesday nights this summer (or, set up your Tivo to record), because POV has just announced our 2008 schedule, and as usual, we’ll be presenting a slate of insightful and thought-provoking documentaries. We’re back on your local PBS stations starting Tuesday, June 24 at 10 PM […]

This is the last of our live reports from the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Cynthia Lopez is POV/AmDoc’s Vice President. This festival marked her eighth year attending Sundance. What follows is her personal diary of the high and low points of last week’s Sundance Film Festival. You just never know what’s going to happen when […]

Now that the big dance is over, I thought I'd take a moment to wrap things up. Once again, the biggest buzz at Sundance was generated by the documentary lineup.

On January 21, Katrina Browne‘s Traces of the Trade had its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was marked at Sundance with two special events.

We hosted our annual POV brunch on Sunday — a welcome relief from the hectic pace of screenings, parties and general mischief that seems to be the Sundance routine. First to arrive was Steven Sebring and Patti Smith — an artist who changed my life at a formative stage. Steven’s film Patti Smith: Dream of […]

WATCHING Howard Rheingold, Web guru, launched a new video blog this month (from BoingBoing) Blue VinylPOV alum Judith Helfand’s 2002 doc aired on the Sundance Channel this month. New Hampshire Primary 2008 GuardianFilms’ documentary team reports from the U.S. READING Robert Redford talks about the Sundance Film Festival’s longstanding commitment to documentary film. Oprah Winfrey […]

For two weeks each January, the film world turns its attention to Park City, Utah. The Sundance Film Festival, the largest independent film festival in the U.S., brings out the stars, the buyers and filmmakers from around the world. This year’s festival will begin on Thursday, January 17. For documentary filmmakers, having a film selected […]