Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.
Premiering February 25 on PBS World, ‘63 Boycott documents a boycott of the Chicago Public schools, spearheaded by 250,000 students. Combining 16mm footage of the march, shot by Kartemquin Films founder Gordon Quinn, with participants’ contemporary reflections, ‘63 Boycott, directed by Quinn, Rachel Dickson and Tracye E. Matthews, connects the forgotten story of one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in the north to today’s issues around race, education, school closings, and youth activism.
In the wake of Green Book’s Academy Award for Best Picture, check out the real story: The Green Book: Guide To Freedom, from Yoruba Richen, premieres February 25 on Smithsonian Channel. The film tells the story of The Negro Motorist Green Book. The brainchild of Harlem postal carrier Victor Green, and first published in the 1930s, this dual travel guide and survival guide enabled African-Americans to navigate safe passage across segregation era-America, well into the 1960s.
People’s Republic of Desire, from Hao Wu, premieres February 25 on Independent Lens. The SXSW Grand Jury Prize winner exposes the baffling reality of how virtual relationships are replacing real-life human connections through China’s exploding world of live streaming--from the super-rich lavishing gifts on their favorite live streamers to the very poor, desperate for a way to feel connected.
And now a little change-up in the Screen Time blog: a doc for the screen in your mind... Launching February 28 on Spotify, in partnership with the BBC Studios Digital, is Stay Free: The Story of The Clash. The podcast takes a deep-dive into the rise, the reign and the explosive self-destruction of one of the greatest bands of the punk rock era, The Clash.
Streaming on New YorkTimes Op-Docs is Musa Syeed’s The Dispossessed, which follows Mohammed Shafi Hazari, a traditional faith healer who exorcising patients who've been possessed. But against the backdrop of the long-running conflict in Kashmir, nothing is as it seems.