In 2008, POV aired Up the Yangtze, which told the story of the Yu family as the Three Gorges Dam project in China changed their lives. Filmmaker Yung Chang revisited the Yu family in the summer of 2010. He shares some pictures and updates from the family. Dear Friends, I took some time off from […]

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 […]

What ever happened to the boys — now, men — from Hoop Dreams? Where did Little Edie, now deceased, end up after Grey Gardens? Are any of those old guys from Brother’s Keeper still kicking? If you have ever found yourself asking any of these, or similar, questions, then I’m here to help. I want […]

Filmmaker and POV alum Joanna Rudnick writes in with an update about the ACLU’s recent lawsuit against Myriad Genetics, which challenges Myriad’s patent on the breast cancer genes. In the documentary film In the Family, which had its broadcast premiere on POV in October 2008, I shared my own story of testing positive for the […]

Filmmaker Gary Weimberg is a two-time POV alum. His film, Soldiers of Conscience, premiered on POV in 2008. An earlier film, The Double Life of Ernesto Gomez Gomez, was on POV in 1999. Gary writes in with a moving update on the lives of the characters from that film and reminds us about the power […]

In honor of Independence Day in the Dominican Republic, POV is proud to share a film that highlights some of the rich diversity of the Dominican immigrant experience in New York City. My American Girls (POV 2001), by director Aaron Matthews, is now streaming in its entirety on the POV website through April 2, 2009. […]

In 2001, the hate-based attempted murders of two Mexican day laborers catapulted the town of Farmingville, New York into national headlines. Filmmakers Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini spent a year there so they could capture first-hand the stories of residents, day laborers and activists on all sides of the debate, and Farmingville premiered on POV […]

Speaking of POV flashbacks and film updates, I finally got the chance to check out a link that fellow staffer Eliza Licht sent around the office a couple weeks ago. Shelby Knox, the central character in The Education of Shelby Knox (POV 2005), recently became a blogger for the Huffington Post. Her beat, not surprisingly, […]

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, […]

Last August, POV aired Andrew Walton‘s Arctic Son, set in the remote village of Old Crow in the Canadian Yukon. In the film, we watch as a father and his son are reunited after almost 25 years apart. Stan Jr. turns to art to express his emotions and to share his view of the world […]

I’m sad to report that the White Plume family, featured in Standing Silent Nation, one of this year’s POV films, lost their home in an electrical fire last week. Thankfully no one was hurt, but according to this report on Daily Kos, “[Debra White Plume] only had time to snatch her grandson, pipe, purse, and […]