Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.
In commemoration of Mental Health Month, Liz Garbus' A Dangerous Son premieres on HBO tonight, May 7, and will be streaming on HBO Now through the month. This film tells the stories of children who are suffering with serious mental illness and the parents who desperately try to obtain treatment before they harm themselves or others, in the face of limited resources and support.
No Man’s Land, from David Byars, airs May 7 on Independent Lens and streams on PBS.org/independentlens through May. Byars takes viewers to Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, the site of the 41-day standoff in 2016 between protestors who occupied the site and federal authorities.
Coming to PBS World on May 8, Finding Kukan tells the tale of a lost documentary—the 1942 Academy Award-wining Kukan—and the uncredited producer, Li Ling-Ai, who, with the help of photojournalist Rey Scott, was instrumental in capturing a citizens'-eye view of China during the Japanese occupation in World War II.
Premiering on Netflix May 11, Evil Genius, a four-part true crime series from Barbara Schroeder and Trey Borzillieri, tracks the bizarre 2003 case in Erie, Pennsylvania, of a robbery gone wrong, a public murder and the motley crew of Midwestern hoarders, outcasts and ne'er-do-wells who kept the FBI busy.