Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.
Premiering May 3 on HBO, and streaming later on HBO GO and HBO Now, Erin Lee Carr’s At the Heart of Gold: Inside The USA Gymnastics Scandal goes beyond the headlines of the decades-long pattern of sexual abuse of female athletes by Dr. Larry Nassar, an osteopathic physician for the US women's Olympic gymnastics team, as well as a physician at Michigan State University. Carr’s film reveals a dangerous system that prioritized winning over everything else, including protecting young female athletes.
Two Towns of Jasper, the 2002 documentary from Marco Williams and Whitney Dow, is available for streaming on Vimeo this week. The film takes the horrific 1998 murder of James Byrd, an African-American, at the hands of three white men, in Jasper, Texas, as a foundation for documenting the deep racial divide that underscored the trial and conviction of the murderers. One of those men, Bill King, was executed last week for the crime. Dow and Williams moved down to Texas and made their documentary with two separate crews--Dow’s was white and Williams’ was black. As Dow puts it in his Facebook page, “This experience set me on a journey and gave me a life’s work that I am still trying to understand..”
Now streaming on The Intercept, Trouble Finds You, from filmmaker/reporter Stephanie Tangkilisan, in collaboration with writer/reporter Alice Speri, focuses on the impact on the largest gang raid in New York City history on one man who had sought to distance himself, geographically and emotionally from his old Bronx neighborhood.
Streaming this month on OVID.TV, Heddy Honigmann’s Oblivion takes viewers to the streets of Lima, Peru, where the filmmaker introduces us to an exhilarating cast of musicians, singers, vendors, shoeshine boys, gymnasts and jugglers, as well as small business owners. This dynamic tableau contrasts sharply with the series of corrupt regimes that have a fostered a nation of economic impoverishment and political abuse.
Premiering April 29 on ABC. The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story chronicles the amazing journey of the iconic band and the American Idol breakout star. The doc features rare concert footage and interviews with Queen founding member Brian May and Roger Taylor, Lambert and Academy Award winner Rami Malek.