March is Women’s History Month so it makes sense to recognize the fact that the documentary industry is largely run by women. As I’ve discussed before, some of the most powerful people in docs are women (Cara Mertes, Sheila Nevins, Diane Weyermann, Ally Derks, Molly Thompson, etc.) and some of the most prominent doc directors […]

What impact do documentaries have on today’s youth? Do kids even know what a documentary is? These questions came to mind when I recently saw that the Sheffield Doc/Fest was asking for applicants for its Youth Jury for the UK event in June. Initially, I was skeptical. But, when you think about it, teens do […]

Over on the Fledgling Fund blog, we came across these great videos by POV filmmaker Jesse Epstein that show the power of documentary film to change people’s minds and inspire them. The first video takes place at Greenpoint, Brooklyn’s Fade to Famous barbershop, the location of Jesse’s short film Wet Dreams and False Images. She […]

New Muslim Cool co-producers Kauthar Umar and Hana Siddiqi wrote in to tell us about “Generation Change,” a U.S. State Department event held last week in Washington, D.C. toasting some of the best and most innovative American Muslim leaders under the age of 30. With much excitement and anticipation we arrived in Washington, D.C. last […]

Remember Shelby Knox, the subject of our 2005 film, The Education of Shelby Knox? Shelby was a feisty teenager from Lubbock, Texas that filmmakers Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt followed in their amazing documentary. The self-described “good Southern Baptist girl” who had pledged abstinence before marriage became an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex education when […]

After watching last night’s exciting win for Kathryn Bigelow and realizing that today is the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day, I found myself wondering who had been the first woman director to win Best Documentary? And for that matter, how many documentaries directed by women have won Oscars in the history of the Academy […]

Patti Smith‘s got a lot going on in the coming weeks and months: sold-out Bowery Ballroom concerts; “Objects of Life” show with Steven Sebring at the Robert Miller Gallery; new book, Just Kids (pictured, right); poetry reading with Sam Shepard at the 92nd Street Y and of course, POV’s Patti Smith: Dream of Life, which […]

Wednesday night’s POV broadcast of Patti Smith: Dream of Life (9 pm most PBS stations, check local listings) has been generating a lot of critical acclaim in the press and online. Sign On San Diego‘s Remote Possibilities blog names it a “TV Pick of the Week” and part of a “Genius Blowout” when coupled with […]

We’ve long admired The New York Times‘ “One in Eight Million” Web series that incorporates photo slideshows of regular New Yorkers with audio interviews. This past week we were excited to see a slideshow about one of POV’s alums! Lynn True is a documentary filmmaker and the editor and co-director of POV’s 2008 film Lumo, […]

Rocky Otoo, 17, center, stands with her father, Nii Adjedu, left, and her mother “Auntie” Yaa Otoo, right, in the Bronx, NY. Credit: Photo by Yoni Brook/Highbridge Pictures POV aired the last film of our 2009 season last night on PBS. Bronx Princess is the story of Rocky Otoo, the Bronx-bred teenage daughter of Ghanaian […]

There's an unwritten mandate woven into the fabric of most documentary films: to edify and to make the world a better place. That's usually a pretty straightforward proposition. Docs that champion the needy, marginalized and dispossessed connect audiences to many important social causes...

Select PBS stations are re-airing POV’s 2007 Emmy-winning film, Made in L.A., this week. (Check your local listings for day and time.) Since it’s been over two years since we’ve heard about the film’s subjects — Lupe, Maura and Maria — we asked filmmakers Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar to send us news about the […]

POV spent some time in Los Angeles earlier this month at the Television Critics Association Press Tour promoting our December special, Patti Smith: Dream of Life. PBS did some interviews with filmmakers, producers and featured subjects of upcoming PBS shows and films. You can find a full line-up of interviews — including filmmakers Ken Burns, […]

Filmmakers Almudena Carracedo and Robert Bahar were just in Washington, D.C. for a screening of Made in L.A. on Capitol Hill. This event included comments and conversation with Congresswoman Diane Watson, ?Congressman Luis Gutierrez, chair of the Hispanic Congressional Caucus’ Immigration Taskforce, Frank Sharry, founder and executive director of America’s Voice, Bill Mefford, director of […]

Our former office mate and outreach consultant extraordinaire Sonya Childress is helping organize the Reel Justice Film Conference at Lehman College in the Bronx. This free two-day conference (April 29 & 30), hosted by Working Films, Andrus Family Fund and Lehman College’s Black Legacy, features great films and speakers that will spur conversation and action […]

Freelance writer Amanda Hirsch, former editorial director of PBS Interactive, blogs about documentaries and the Web in her column, Outside the Frame, published every other Wednesday. I should say right off the bat that I don’t have kids. So what am I doing at Momversation, a video blog about the experiences of motherhood? Well, I’m […]

This week, a pretty interesting documentary series called Flying: Confessions of a Free Woman is hitting your local DVD store — or your Netflix queue (November 11, to be exact). It’s appropriately titled, because it really is a 21st century Fear of Flying. The subject is the filmmaker Jennifer Fox, a 40-something woman who provides […]

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, […]