“We are not makers of history. We are made by history” —Martin Luther King Jr. MLK/FBI, currently streaming via IFC Films, is director Sam Pollard’s most impressive work yet. Pollard boldly and creatively examines Martin Luther King Jr. in an unfamiliar light. The story investigates FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover’s obsession with destroying Dr. King’s reputation, through surveillance and a general abuse of power. Hoover, who headed the FBI for nearly 50 years, feared King’s growing influence in the civil rights movement and labeled him “the most dangerous Negro in America”—the manifestation of
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Essential Doc Reads is our curated selection of recent features and important news items about the documentary form and its processes, from around the internet, as well as from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! Filmmaker Laura Poitras published an open letter this past week about her having been fired from First Look Media, which owns both The Intercept and Field of Vision, the documentary platform she founded in 2015 with A.J. Schnack and Charlotte Cook. IndieWire’s Eric Kohn reached out to Poitras for further details. As journalists, we have an obligation to protect
Crip Camp wins Best Feature; Garrett Bradley wins Best Director for Time; John Was Trying to Contact Aliens wins Best Short.
The Villages, which bills itself as “Florida’s friendliest hometown,” has made news in recent years not for its supposed status as an adult retirement community utopia, but for being a loud and proud, geriatric MAGA stronghold. (Though the age 55-and-up place also made headlines just prior to the presidential election for a rumored pro-Biden turn against Trump.) Fortunately, first-time feature filmmaker Lance Oppenheim decided to set all politics aside when venturing into this heart of Disneyfied darkness. Instead, Oppenheim opted to craft Some Kind of Heaven, an exquisite character study
Maria Ressa is an institution unto herself. She has long been a household name in her native Philippines, with nearly two decades serving as CNN’s bureau chief—first in Manila (1987-1995), then Jakarta (1995-2005)—followed by six years at the helm of ABS-CBN, the largest multi-platform news operation in the region. Yet it was with Rappler, the Manila-based social news network that she co-founded in 2011 and for which she serves as CEO and Executive Editor, that she received global recognition. Ressa became internationally known and heralded for her refusal to back down as Philippine President
Essential Doc Reads is our curated selection of recent features and important news items about the documentary form and its processes, from around the internet, as well as from the Documentary magazine archive. We hope you enjoy! Editor's Note: Just as this past week of wrenching tumult came to a close, the documentary world lost a titan on Friday—Michael Apted. One of a handful of filmmakers who regularly crossed back and forth between documentary and feature films, Apted, who earned the 1999 IDA Career Achievement Award, was best known for The UP Series. Back in 1964, with Apted on board as
Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home. The documentary world lost Michael Apted last Friday, and the one work that most distinguished his career was The UP Series, which began in 1964 as an exploration into the British class system through the lens of a cross-section of seven-year-old children, then deepened over the subsequent decades into an affirmation—and perhaps refutation—of the Jesuit maxim that drove the entire series: “Show me the child at seven, and I’ll show you the person.” Most of the original 14
At 1:14 pm on October 2, 2018, Jamal Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He was never seen again. While his fiancée, Hatice Cengiz, stood anxiously waiting outside, he was brutally suffocated, murdered and dismembered. Despite initial denials, it was soon evident that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had orchestrated a state-sponsored assassination in a foreign country, ordered by the inscrutable, flinty-eyed, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. The Dissident, the new documentary from Academy Award-winner Bryan Fogel ( Icarus), delves into the complex story surrounding Khashoggi’s
Driven by “fierce compassion—the kind where you will burst if you don’t do something about it,” this year’s IDA Amicus Award honoree, Regina K. Scully, has produced over 200 films focused on social justice issues, including Knock Down the House, The Invisible War, Athlete A and Fed Up. She also recently produced a short documentary, What Would Sophia Loren Do? that just premiered on Netflix. As the founder and CEO of Artemis Rising Foundation, when Scully chooses to take on a project, “It’s about who and how this film can help. How many people will be in less pain because of it? How much
Sam Pollard has spent the last four decades crafting stories primarily detailing the African American experience—stories that reveal complex protagonists ( Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta be Me), examine a system of exploitation and racial oppression ( Slavery by Another Name), and bring to the forefront conversations on racial injustice on children of color by law enforcement ( The Talk: Race in America). The Harlem native’s impressive oeuvre boasts a cross-pollination of nonfiction and fiction, historical events and contemporary issues, and portraits of entertainers and politicians. The multi