Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.
Filmed over three tumultuous years covering the lead up to, and aftermath of, Freddie Gray’s death in police custody in Baltimore, Marilyn Ness’ critically-acclaimed Charm City, an IDA Enterprise Documentary Fund grantee, is an intimate cinema verité portrait of those surviving in, and working to improve, the vibrant city they call home. The film airs April 22 on Independent Lens and streams through April.
Stanley Nelson’s latest film, Boss: The Black Experience in Business, tells the untold story of African-American entrepreneurship, where skill, industriousness, ingenuity and sheer courage in the face of overwhelming odds provide the backbone of this nation’s economic and social growth. Boss airs April 23 on PBS.
Available April 23 on iTunes is Patrimonio, from Sarah Teale and Lisa F. Jackson. The IDA Pare Lorentz Documentary Fund grantee follows a confrontation between a multi-billion dollar American developer, intent on building a mega hotel/condo complex, and the coastal Mexican community it would impact.
The Redemption Project with Van Jones is a new eight-part CNN Original Series, created and executive produced by Jonas Bell Pasht, Jonah Bekhor and Jason Cohen. Offering a rare glimpse into the restorative justice process, each episode follows the victim, or surviving family members, of a life-altering crime as they journey to meet face-to-face with their offender in the hopes of finding answers or some sense of healing. The series premieres April 28 on CNN.
Now streaming on The Guardian, Lasting Marks, from Charlie Lyne, recounts the story of 16 men put on trial for sadomasochism in the last days of the Thatcher Era in the UK. Told through court documents and media coverage, the film reveals a fight for LGBTQ rights that resonates to this day.