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June Cross is a documentary filmmaker who has Emmy, Peabody, and DuPont-Columbia Journalism awards under her belt. She also founded and directs the doc program at the Columbia University Journalism School. So you could say she's helped bring not only documentary films into the world but also a lot of documentary filmmakers. We talk about her own films, which include the autobiographical Secret Daughter, a film with many twists about her upbringing as the daughter of a white mother and a Black father, and Wilhemina’s War, about a grandmother caring for her HIV-positive granddaughter in South Carolina. We also discuss what she teaches her students about the craft and ethics of documentary filmmaking and how her own thoughts about those things have evolved over the years.
More about June here.
Films mentioned in the episode:
Wilhemina's War (2015), Dir. June Cross
Secret Daughter, June Cross
The Territory (2022), Dir. Alex Pritz
Imitation of Life (1959), Dir. Douglas Sirk
A Kid Kills (1992), Dir. June Cross
Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Dir. Michael Moore
Other Mentions:
Bill Moyers
Fredi Washington
Amiri Baraka
Anna Deavere Smith
David Fanning
Frontline
Jigsaw ProductionsFollow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
Caty Borum heads the Center for Media and Social Impact at the American University School of Communication, and she's the author of Story Movements: How Documentaries Empower People and Inspire Social Change. She studies “creative, independent investigative documentary,” her term for docs that are as thoroughly artistic as they are journalistic. We chat about the techniques and challenges that make these stories and their storytellers unique. More about Caty here.
Films mentioned in this episode:
Newtown (2016), Dir. Kim Snyder
An Insignificant Man (2016), Dir. Khushboo Ranka and Vinay Shukla
Citizenfour (2014), Dir. Laura Poitras
The Feeling Of Being Watched (2018), Dir. Assia Boundaoui
The Murder of Emmett Till (2003), Dir. Stanley Nelson
Attica (2021), Dir. Stanley Nelson
Other mentions:
Tabitha Jackson
Errol Morris
Doc Society
International Documentary Association
World Press Freedom Index
Exposé: America’s Investigative Reports
Peter Nicks
Jon Shenk
Tom JenningsFollow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
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Brian Newman is one of the more trenchant observers on the documentary scene. He’s worn many hats in the industry: as an indie film producer, as the CEO of the Tribeca Film Institute, as a programmer for the Atlanta Film Festival, and much more. He currently leads a consultancy called Sub-Genre, doing content, strategy, development, distribution and marketing, for which he writes the Sub-Genre newsletter that a lot of media folks read. He has, as you'll hear in this conversation, some hope for the independent documentary world, even in the face of recent media consolidation, as we talk about how an ecosystem friendly to independent documentary once sprung up, and also how it might be sustained in the world of commercial media. More about Brian here.
Note: In this episode, we mention that one of my favorite films of 2022, Reid Davenport’s “I Didn’t See You There,” is not streaming. Reid says he hopes to have it available on iTunes and Amazon on 1/10/24. Highly recommended!
Films mentioned:
Shored Up (2013), Ben Kalina
I Didn’t See You There (2022), Reid Davenport
Other mentions:
Atlanta Film Festival
Tribeca Film Institute
Ted Sarandos
Cara Mertes
Frontline
POV
Independent Lens
Camden International Film Festival
The D-Word
International Documentary Association (IDA)
Association of Independent Video and Filmmakers (AIVF)
Sundance Film FeFollow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
Carrie Lozano has played a lot of important roles in the documentary field. Until not long ago she headed the Sundance Institute’s Documentary Film and Artist Programs. Before that, she designed and directed the International Documentary Association’s Enterprise Fund. Her gig right now is heading up ITVS, the Independent Television Service, which, among other things, funds and distributes public TV docs, and brings us the long-running, much-decorated PBS series Independent Lens. All her experience puts her smack in the middle of a lot of the conversations going on in the documentary world about cinema, journalism, and about the role of both in a democracy, and we talk about all that and more. More about Carrie here.
Note: In this episode, we mention the fact that one of my favorite films of 2022, Reid Davenport’s “I Didn’t See You There,” is not streaming. Reid tells me he hopes to have it available on iTunes and Amazon on 1/10/24. Highly recommended!
Films mentioned in this episode:I Didn’t See You There (2022), Dir. Reid Davenport
The Day After Trinity (1981), Dir. Jon Else
The Devil Never Sleeps (1994), Dir. Lourdes Portillo
Oppenheimer (2023), Dir. Christopher Nolan
Other mentions:Independent Lens
Fault Lines
Independent Television Service (ITVS)
Frontline
POV
America Reframed
Firelight Media
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
Tia Lessin and Carl Deal are filmmaking partners whose careers have run the gamut from directing their Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning Trouble The Water about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, to producing several of Michael Moore’s films, and more. Tia also directed, with Emma Pildes, 2022’s Emmy Award-winning The Janes, about women providing abortion care in pre-Roe v. Wade Chicago. Tia started out as a labor organizer and an activist. And while Carl has an activist background as well, he also attended Columbia University Journalism School. We talk about how journalism and activism play out in their filmmaking, the creative use of stock footage, and documentary ethics.
More about Tia and Carl here.
Films mentioned in the episode:Trouble the Water (2008), Dir. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal
The Janes (2022), Dir. Tia Lessin and Emma Pildes
Where To Invade Next (2015), Dir. Michael Moore
The UnRedacted (originally Jihad Rehab) (2022), Dir. Meg Smaker
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
David Siev, a first-time feature filmmaker, made a splash in 2022 with his film Bad Axe, which began with his documenting the mundane proceedings of his family’s restaurant in the small town of Bad Axe, Michigan, and wound up a stunning, personal portrait of America in the Black Lives Matter summer of 2020. The film was shortlisted for an Academy Award for its portrayal of the events of 2020. We talk about what it was like to come out of seemingly nowhere to earn that honor, what it meant to him, as well as what it cost him. He also shares his thoughts about the intersection of documentary film and journalism, as well as what kinds of doc films he'd like to see made and honored by the industry.
David is a first-generation Cambodian-Mexican-American. His first film was an award-winning narrative short, Year Zero, based on his father’s escape from the killing fields of Cambodia. More about David here.
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
Byron Hurt wears a lot of hats: filmmaker, journalist, activist, mentor and more. He’s also brave, if his 2022 film Hazing is any indication. Hazing takes on the subculture of humiliation and often violence that people endure when they wish to join certain organizations, including college fraternities and sororities. It’s taboo to talk about hazing if you’ve taken part in it, but Byron, a fraternity member who’s seen it from both sides, does just that. We talk about the challenges he encountered in making Hazing, including something that could have scuttled the film’s release two days before it premiered on the PBS Independent Lens series. We also talk about Byron’s evolving philosophy as to how he treats the participants in his films, as well as his influences as inspirations in the documentary business.
Byron’s other films include 2023’s Lee & Liza’s Family Tree, for the PBS NOVA series, as well as Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes and Soul Food Junkies. More about Byron here.
Films mentioned in this episode:Hazing (2022), Dir. Byron Hurt
Soul Food Junkies (2012), Dir. Byron Hurt
Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (2006), Dir. Byron Hurt
Tongues Untied (1989), Dir. Marlon Riggs
Black Is… Black Ain’t (1995), Dir. Marlon Riggs
Ethnic Notions (1987), Dir. Marlon Riggs
Color Adjustment (1992), Dir. Marlon Riggs
Other mentions:Documentary Accountability Working Group
Marlon Riggs
Stanley Nelson
Andrew P. Jones
Orlando Bagwell
Michael Moore
Bill Moyers
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
The Documentary Accountability Working Group (DAWG) is making quite an impact in the documentary film world, promoting a framework for values-based documentary ethics and practices. Natalie Bullock Brown is its director, and she’s my guest this time around. We talk about DAWG’s suggestions as to how people agreeing to appear in documentaries ought to be treated, with regard to compensation, psychological services, community outreach and more. There’s some great overlap between this conversation and my podcast conversations with Byron Hurt and Jennifer Tiexiera & Camilla Hall, so please check those out too.
Along with her work at DAWG, Natalie is an award-winning film producer who also teaches at North Carolina State University. She's held several fellowships, including one at the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. More about Natalie here.
Films mentioned in this episode:Hazing (2022), Dir. Byron Hurt
Sabaya (2021), Dir. Hogir Hirori
Subject (2023), Dir. Jennifer Tiexiera & Camilla Hall
Other Mentions:
Documentary Accountability Working Group
Documentary Magazine
“Documentary Future: A Call For Accountability”
Sonya Childress
Bhawin Suchak
Youth FX
Molly Murphy
Hannah Hearn
Getting Real
Dr. Kameelah Mu’Min Rashad aka Oseguera
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
Robert Greene is a professor at the University of Missouri's Journalism School, where he runs the Murray Center for Documentary Journalism. But he's better known as a filmmaker whose documentaries are anything but “traditional” journalism. These include two that we talk about in this podcast, Procession, about the pedophilia scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, which was shortlisted for the documentary Oscar in 2021, and the award-winning Bisbee ‘17, about a mass deportation of immigrants that took place in the American Southwest about a century ago. We also discuss his influences, his filmmaking philosophy, and some of his favorite documentaries.
Robert’s other films include Kate Plays Christine and Actress. More about Robert here.
Films mentioned in this episode:Procession (2020), Dir. Robert Greene
Spotlight (2015), Dir. Tom McCarthy
Bisbee ‘17 (2018), Dir. Robert Greene
Written On The Wind (1956), Dir. Douglas Sirk
Imitation of Life (1959), Dir. Douglas Sirk
Racetrack (1985), Dir. Frederick Wiseman
Strong Island (2017), Dir. Yance Ford
Cameraperson (2016), Dir. Kirsten Johnson
Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018), RaMell Ross
Time (2020), Garrett Bradley
Primary (1960), Dir. Robert Drew
Gimme Shelter (1970), Albert and David Maysles
Other Mentions:Eric Hynes
Museum of the Moving Image
Peter Watkins
Chantal Ackerman
Robert Flaherty
Michael Moore
Direct Cinema movement
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
I think it’s safe to say Jennifer Tieixiera and Camilla Hall have created a documentary unlike any other. It's called Subject, and it profiles people whose stories have appeared in some of the most acclaimed documentaries of the last three decades or so, including Hoop Dreams, The Square, The Wolfpack, and The Staircase. But what makes Subject different is that it focuses on what happened to these folks after their participation in documentaries made them famous. It’s a film that asks filmmakers to take a hard look at their own processes and motives, and we discuss not only filmmaking practices and ethics, but also the state of the doc world both from a creative and business perspective.
More about Jennifer and Camilla here.
Films mentioned in this episode:Subject (2023), Dir. Jennifer Tiexiera & Camilla Hall
The Staircase series (2022), Dir. Leigh Janiak, Antonio Campos
Hoop Dreams (1994), Dir. Steve James
Capturing The Friedmans (2003), Dir. Andrew Jarecki
The Square (2013), Jehane Noujaim
Winter On Fire: Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom (2015), Evgeny Afineevsky
Other Mentions:Gordon Quinn
Pat Aufderheide
Margie Ratliff
Kirsten Johnson
Michèle Stephenson
Joe Brewster
Assia Boundaoui
Sam Pollard
Bruce Shapiro
Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma
Documentary Accountability Working Group
Sonya Childress
Dr. Kameelah Mu’Min Rashad aka Oseguera
Ahmed Hassan
Rita Baghdadi
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
What’s it like for independent doc filmmakers, accustomed to making all their own decisions, to work with a top-notch doc series like PBS’s Frontline, with its strict journalistic guidelines? That’s the main topic I discuss with award-winning doc filmmakers Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein, whose terrific 2022 film American Reckoning began as an indie project but eventually turned into a Frontline project.
Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein are well-known both separately as a team, Yoruba for films including 2023’s The Cost of Inheritance, which premiered at DOC NYC, Brad for films including 2022’s Emmy Award-winning When Claude Got Shot. More about Yoruba here, and Brad here.
Films mentioned in this episode:American Reckoning (2022), Dir. Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein
The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show (2020), Dir. Yoruba Richen
When Claude Got Shot (2021), Dir. Brad Lichtenstein
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (2022), Dir. Yoruba Richen and Johanna Hamilton
Black Natchez (1967), Dir. Ed Pincus and David Neuman
Other mentions:
St. Clair Bourne
Bill Moyers
The Un(re)solved Project
Dawn Porter
Frontline
Hillary Bachelder
Raney Aronson-Rath
The Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
Award-winning documentarian Dawn Porter talks about bringing journalistic principles and standards to documentary filmmaking and treating documentary subjects as collaborators and partners rather than “subjects.” We also discuss the need to keep having the difficult conversations needed to keep up with the changing documentary landscape. We also talk about how she got into the business by way of another profession, and discuss one of my favorites of her films, Gideon's Army, which premiered at Sundance and was nominated for both the Independent Spirit Award for Best Doc and an Emmy.
Dawn’s 2023 film, The Lady Bird Diaries was called “mesmerizing” and “elegant” by The Guardian. She is also known for the HBO film Trapped, about the last abortion providers in Mississippi, as well as films about Civil Rights icon John Lewis and the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. More about Dawn here.
Films mentioned in this episode:All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022), Dir. Laura Poitras
Hoop Dreams (1994), Dir. Steve James
The Territory (2022), Dir. Alex Pritz
Gideon’s Army (2013), Dir. Dawn Porter
The Interrupters (2011), Dir. Steve James
Jesus Camp (2006), Dir. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Five Broken Cameras (2011), Dir. Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
Other Mentions:Nan Goldin
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
Julie Cohen and Betsy West are best known as a team for their Oscar-nominated documentary RBG about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They’re also both former network news journalists. We talk about the differences and similarities between those two worlds (hint: one of them sounds more fun), the films that helped shape their sensibilities, and their films RBG, Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down, about the former Congresswoman’s recovery from an assassination attempt, and My Name Is Pauli Murray, about the non-binary lawyer who played a key role in the civil rights movement.
Julie Cohen’s 2023 film, Every Body, premiered at Tribeca and was released theatrically by Focus Features. Called “a master class in how a documentary should be done” by The Boston Globe, it tells of three courageous intersex people who've overcome shame and secrecy to become their true selves.
Betsy West is a filmmaker, journalist, and professor emerita at the Columbia Journalism School. A 21-time Emmy Award winner, she served as executive producer of the ABC News documentary series Turning Point and as VP of News at CBS, where she oversaw 60 Minutes and 48 Hours.
More about Julie & Betsy here.
Films mentioned in this episode:RBG (2018), Dir. Julie Cohen and Betsy West
Hoop Dreams (1994), Dir. Steve James
Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down (2022), Dir. Julie Cohen and Betsy West
Flee (2021), Dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Haulout (2022), Dir. Maxim Arbugaev and Evgenia Arbugaeva
The Endless Summer (1966), Dir. Bruce Brown
The World At War series (1973-74), Dir. David Elstein
Roger And Me (1989), Dir. Michael Moore
Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Dir. Wim Wenders
My Name is Pauli Murray (2021), Dir. Julie Cohen and Betsy West
Other Mentions:Senator Mark Kelly
Turning Point (ABC News)
Cinque Northern
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. -
A new podcast about the intersection of documentary film and journalism, hosted by filmmaker Tom Casciato.
Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod
Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
