Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.
Jawline, the debut film from Liza Mandelup, follows 16-year-old Austyn Tester, as he transforms his life in dead-end rural Tennessee into teenage stardom in the live-broadcast ecosystem, connecting with a global audience of young girls through an ongoing stream of positivity. Jawline, for which Mandelup won a Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker at the Sundance Film Festival, streams on Hulu.
Ghana Controversial: Music from the Ground Up, streaming on Al Jazeera English, profiles a vibrant alternative music scene in Ghana that confronts global and local social issues with a heady mix of funk and finesse. Peter Guyer and Thomas Burkhalter direct.
Heart of a Dog, from legendary multimedia artist Laurie Anderson, takes the losses of her husband Lou Reed and her dog Lolabelle as a touchstone for an elegiac meditation on death and absence, Tibetan Buddhism, reincarnation and the modern surveillance state. Now streaming on The Criterion Channel
Scenes from a Dry City, from Simon Wood and Francois Verster, takes viewers through Cape Town, South Africa, where a severe water shortage is forcing residents to contemplate the day when the taps run dry. Now available on Field of Vision.
NY Times Op Docs presents My Name Is Darlin. I Just Came Out of Detention, Isabel Castro’s profile of a Honduran family divided by US immigration authorities and struggling to reunite.