“Check Your Ego at the Door”. Those words were scrawled on a piece of paper and taped to the door of A&M Studios on the night of January 28, 1985. The story behind that command is the subject of director Bao Nguyen’s (“Be Water”) thoroughly captivating new Netflix documentary “The Greatest Night in Pop” about the once-in-a-lifetime event that drew dozens of the world’s biggest pop stars together on one night to record what would become the ‘80s phenomenon “We Are the World”.   Bao joins Ken on the pod to describe everything that went into the making of “We Are the World” and how he we ..read more

Many of the issues that plagued the young people of America decades ago–binge drinking, drunken driving, teenage pregnancy, smoking, to name a few–have greatly declined in significance.  But in their place we have witnessed a seemingly ever-deepening mental health crisis amongst our youth, one partly rooted, as our guests tell us, in a rise of anxiety.   The directors of “Anxious Nation,” Laura Morton and Vanessa Roth, join Mike to explain how their own family experiences drove them to engage with this essential topic.  In their film they explore the deep roots of anxiety–not on ..read more

How much do you really know about Reality Winner, the veteran and NSA contractor who shared a document regarding Russian interference in the 2016 election with “The Intercept”, and then subsequently served several years in Federal prison as a consequence?     Sonia Kennebeck’s (Enemies of the State, National Bird) “Reality Winner” melds a host of timelines–before the arrest & after; during the FBI interrogation in her home; from the viewpoint of family as well as others who have bucked the national security state–to tell a broader story than the one you may have heard.  ..read more

Joining us for the third year in a row, Variety’s Senior Awards Editor Clayton Davis breaks down this year’s Oscar races for Best Documentary Feature and Best Documentary Short and offers his predictions for who will be victorious at the 96th Academy Awards on March 10th. With the feature doc category taking on a very international flavor this year, what does Clayton think of how the process unfolded from the shortlist to the nominations? How might Netflix’s late acquisition of “To Kill a Tiger” affect the outcome? In what is considered a very tight race, what might tip the balance?   Wit ..read more

We’ve saved the last of our live, in-person interviews at Sundance 2024 for the winners of the Sundance U.S. Documentary Competition Audience Award and overall Festival Favorite, the incredibly moving, tear-jerking, and, hopefully, policy-shifting documentary “Daughters”. Directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae join Ken to discuss their world premiere screening and the life-changing organization “Girls For a Change” that Angela founded.   Over the course of the film, we meet Lashawn (5), Diamond (10), Unita (11), Sherita (15), and their families. Missing from their home lives are their fa ..read more

When Ranjit and his family turn to the Indian legal system to seek justice for his daughter who had been raped by three local young men, they face not only daunting odds from the system but deep resistance from their village.     Nisha Pahuja’s Academy Award-nominated film “To Kill a Tiger” traces the profound tension Ranjit experiences: on the one side is the promise of recent national legislation that empowers children who have been sexually assaulted; on the other are the restrictions of the customs and traditions of a village which would like to “make peace” and marry Ranjit ..read more

Continuing our coverage of Academy Award-nominated shorts, Mike speaks with Sean Wang about his loving tribute to his grandmothers.  As he describes the film:  “Nǎi Nai is my grandma. Wài Pó is my grandma. Together they are a grandma super team that dances, stretches, and farts their sorrows away.”  Despite its seeming insularity, and it’s general mood of fun and mischief, the film opens up to become as well a profound meditation on mortality.   You can watch “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó (Grandma & Grandma)” on Disney+.   The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix ..read more

Continuing our coverage of Academy Award-nominated shorts, Mike speaks with Kris Bowers (previously nominated for “A Concerto is a Conversation”)  and Ben Proudfoot (an Academy-Award winner for “The Queen of Basketball”) , directors of “The Last Repair Shop”.     The film sketches the stories–both representative of the Los Angeles workforce, as well as fascinating in their own right–of 4 repair workers who fix the instruments of students from the LAUSD.  Lyrical in presentation, and symphonic in structure, the film can be seen not only as a paean to the redemptive powe ..read more

The island of Kinmen is a small island with a potentially big problem. Situated just off the coast of China, but part of Taiwan, Kinmen would likely be the first line of defense should the Chinese government decide to invade Taiwan. Emmy-nominated director S. Leo Chiang, who was born in Taiwan, worked in China and also lived for years in the U.S., explores the complex relationship between place, identity and politics in his insightful and masterfully crafted documentary short “Island in Between”.   Joining Ken on the pod, Leo and producer Jean Tsien delve into the backstory of Kinmen — a ..read more

The fact that Arlo Washington, featured as the main protagonist in John Hoffman and Christine Turner’s inspiring documentary “The Barber of Little Rock”, is, indeed, a barber is almost beside the point. From owning one and then multiple barber shops, to founding the Washington Barber College and starting People Trust Credit Union, the first minority-owned financial institution in Arkansas, Arlo is a force of nature. He’s always thinking of new ways to address issues of equity in the Black community and create generational wealth.    Joining Ken on the podcast, John Hoffman describes ..read more