Pure Nonfiction: Inside Documentary Film

Pure Nonfiction partnered with The Ankler for a live event in Los Angeles that highlighted documentary projects eligible for this year’s Emmys. On this episode, host Thom Powers interviews the teams behind five different feature docs:- Sarah Gibson and Erin Lee Carr on Stormy- Lance Oppenheim and Kathleen Lingo on Spermworld- Justin Wilkes, Lisa Henson, and Brian Henson on Jim Henson Idea Man- Bao Nguyen on The Greatest Night in Pop - Alex Gibney on In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul SimonWhether or not you’ve seen these projects, the interviews bring insight into a wide variety of filmmaking styles. On our previous episode, we heard from the filmmakers behind five documentary series that are Emmy contenders.Subscribe to our Substack newsletter Doc Voices.On Instagram: @purenonfiction @thompowers1

Pure Nonfiction partnered with The Ankler for a live event in Los Angeles that highlighted documentary projects eligible for this year’s Emmys. On this episode, host Thom Powers interviews the teams behind five different episodic series:- Andrew Jarecki on The Jinx - Part Two- Prentice Penny on Black Twitter: A People’s History- Sam Lipman-Stern and Adam Bhala Lough on Telemarketers- Jasha Klebe on Our Planet II- Fisher Stevens on BeckhamWhether or not you’ve seen these projects, the interviews bring insight into a wide variety of filmmaking styles. On the next episode, we hear from the filmmakers behind five Emmy contenders in the categories for feature documentary.Subscribe to our Substack newsletter Doc Voices.On Instagram: @purenonfiction @thompowers1

"Flipside" is a personal essay film in which director Chris Wilcha grapples with middle age by trying to document the New Jersey record store where he worked as a teenager. In the process, he returns to multiple other documentary projects that never came to fruition - interweaving interviews with jazz photographer Herman Leonard, TV writer David Milch, radio host Ira Glass, writer Starlee Kine, director Judd Apatow, comedian Uncle Floyd, and others.This subject hits close to home for Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers who was once was featured in the New York Times article Untold Stories, Abandoned Films about his own unfinished films.Flipside is now playing in theaters from Oscilloscope Laboratories.Subscribe to our Substack newsletter Doc Voices.On Instagram: @purenonfiction @thompowers1

Indian documentary film has been gaining world renown with Peabody Awards, Oscar nominations and other recognition. A key trailblazer for this movement is Anand Patwardhan who has grappled with India's most hot button political issues in films such as "Reason" and "Father, Son and the Holy War." Now in his 70s, he's releasing his most personal film "The World is Family." He profiles his parents whose lives were intertwined with India's fight for independence.Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviewed Anand at the Toronto International Film Festival where "The World is Family" made its debut. Anand's next festival stop is the New York Indian Film Festival on June 1. See this article in Indiewire where esteemed Indian directors including Shaunak Sen and Vinay Shukla pay tribute to Anand.For more coverage of the documentary scene, subscribe to our Substack newsletter Doc Voices.On Instagram: @purenonfiction @thompowers1

"Songs of Earth" is both a love story and a cinematic exploration of nature. Filmmaker Margreth Olin profiles her parents while immersing us in Norway's landscape of glaciers, fjords and waterfalls. After winning acclaim at festivals from CPH:DOX to TIFF, the film is now playing in U.S. theaters from Strand Releasing. It begs to be experienced on a big screen. Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviews Margreth about her attention to the image capturing, sound design, and the profound experience of screening the film in her family’s village.For more insights on documentary, subscribe to the Pure Nonfiction newsletter Doc Voices.On Instagram: @purenonfiction @thompowers1

Rob Reiner started his directing career with the spoof documentary "This is Spinal Tap" and is now editing a sequel. He has a new documentary now playing on Max, "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life" that traces six years of friendship between the two filmmakers.On Instagram: @purenonfiction @thompowers1

During the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, Yousef Srouji was a boy living with his family in the West Bank town of Beit Jala. His mother Suha used a camcorder to capture family life including when they were forced to take shelter from gunfire and explosions. Years later, Yousef discovered the footage and turned it into the film Three Promises that won the top jury prize at the Camden International Film Festival. Now the film is opening in New York at the DCTV Firehouse Cinema.Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviewed Yousef from his home in Ramallah. They discuss his career as "an accidental filmmaker" and his motives to return to Palestine after his family moved away.On Instagram: @purenonfiction @thompowers1

Paul Cronin has spent years creating a massive oral history about the Columbia University student uprising in 1968. The work titled "A Time to Stir" was first presented publicly in 2008 as a four rough cut at the Toronto International Film Festival. Village Voice critic Scott Foundas wrote that it was "the most vital movie" of that year's festival. Ultimately, Paul recorded over 700 interviews that he compiled into a 10-part project that has a length of 15 hours. You can watch it for free on his Vimeo page.Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviewed Paul this month, a few days after Columbia University called in police again to quell student protests. Suddenly, Paul's research has a new currency as people seek comparisons between campus protests in 1968 and 2024.For more about Paul's work, including his projects on Werner Herzog, Abbas Kiarostami, Haskell Wexler, Amos Vogel and Peter Whitehead, see his website thestickingplace.comOn Instagram: @purenonfiction @thompowers1

"The Contestant" takes us back to the early days of reality TV in Japan. An aspiring comedian named nicknamed Nasubi ("eggplant") auditions for the hit show Denpa Shonen, known for real people performing crazy stunts. The show’s producer Toshio Tsuchiya brings Nasubi to a room and tells him to get undressed. The room contains a rack of magazines and little else. Toshio informs Nasubi that he needs to fill out magazine sweepstakes coupons to win his food and clothing. He can’t leave the room until he’s reached one million yen of prizes. It sounds crazy, but Nasubi lived by the terms of this concept for over a year, not realizing that his life was being turned into a weekly TV program with millions of viewers.Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviews first time filmmaker Clair Titley about how she pulled off the film with the help of her producer Megumi Inman and the production company Misfits. "The Contestant" is now streaming on Hulu.On Instagram: @purenonfiction @thompowers1

The non-profit Just Vision has a long history of covering Israel-Palestine in documentary films such as "Encounter Point," and "Budrus." Currently all their films are available for free at justvision.org. Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers speaks with the group's creative director Julia Bacha and executive director Suhad Babaa about their latest film "Boycott" and how their work changed with the recent escalation of violence.On Instagram: @purenonfiction @thompowers1