Screen Time is your curated weekly guide to excellent documentaries and nonfiction programs that you can watch at home.
Premiering October 7 on POV is América, a portrait of a family--three brothers, their declining grandmother and their father, who is imprisoned for elderly neglect of his mother. Round-the-clock elderly care is the catalyst that reunites Diego, Rodriquez and Bruno in their boyhood home in Colima, Mexico, but it also instigates fraternal tension amoid the challenge of putting their lives and livelihoods on hold. Directed by Erick Stoll and Chase Whiteside.
Premiering October 10 on HBO, Torn Apart: Separated at the Border, from Ellen Goosenberg Kent, follows two mothers who fled life-threatening conditions in their home countries to seek asylum in the United States--only to have their children taken away from them.
Premiering October 11 on Discovery Channel is Why We Hate, a six-part series executive-produced by Alex Gibney and Steven Spielberg and directed by Geeta Gandbhir and Sam Pollard. The series explores the depths and mysteries of one of humanity’s most primal and destructive emotions--hate. At the heart of this timely series is the notion that if people begin to understand their own minds, they can find ways to work against hate and keep it from spreading.
Streaming on YouTube is Street Scenes, a little-known documentary from Martin Scorsese, from his NYU film student days. The 1970 film, which documents two anti-Vietnam War protests--one in New York City and the other in Washington, DC--concludes with Scorsese, Harvey Keitel, Verna Bloom and Jay Cocks hunkering down in a DC hotel room, engaged in deep conversation about war, protest and the state of America.
Finally, he a ferociously brilliant drummer and an equally ferocious and ornery person. He was Ginger Baker, arguably the greatest rock ’n’ roll drummer of all time, whose roots in jazz leant a singular artistry to his style. He passed away this weekend at age 80, and most doc fans will remember him for his on-camera assault of filmmaker Jay Bulger, which opens the aptly titled Beware of Mr. Baker, now streaming on YouTube