Mike Africa Jr.'s mom and dad were convicted as part of Philadelphia's violent campaign against unorthodox MOVE group American history can be read as one long effort to control or eradicate Black people. In the antebellum era they were exploited as free labor; in the post-Civil War period they have been subjected to mass incarceration, lynchings, spasms of white terror (Tulsa race massacre of 1921, Rosewood in 1923), and police killings (George Floyd, Oscar Grant, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, Philando Castille, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Stephon Clark, Tanisha Anderson, Michael Brown, Eri ..read more

Oscar winner conducted 10 hours of interviews with Maradona for his 2019 documentary Diego Maradona as seen in the documentary directed by Asif Kapadia. Photo courtesy HBO Director Asif Kapadia is reacting with shock to the death of Argentina football great Diego Maradona, the subject of the Oscar winner's 2019 eponymous documentary. "Can't quite believe DM [Diego Maradona] is gone," Kapadia tweeted Wednesday after news broke that Maradona had died of a heart attack in Buenos Aires Province at the age of 60. Maradona underwent brain surgery only a few weeks ago. "Hard to process. He always ..read more

Softie, Collective, Gunda, Time, Crip Camp among films nominated for Best Feature Documentary An exclusive group of nonfiction filmmakers is celebrating after the announcement of the nominations for the 36th annual IDA Awards. "We are elated by this news!" tweeted the account for Crip Camp, the documentary about the rise of the disability rights movement that scored five nominations Tuesday, including Best Feature Documentary and Best Director for Nicole Newnham and Jim LeBrecht. Crip Camp was also nominated for Best Editing (Eileen Meyer and Andrew Gersh), Best Writing (Newnham an ..read more

RJ Cutler's documentary on John Belushi premieres on Showtime Sunday night John Belushi, 1949-1982. Photo courtesy Showtime Some losses you just don't get over. For American culture, one of those is the death of John Belushi at the age of 33, a tragedy that deprived the country of one of the most gifted comedians it ever produced. I was traveling abroad in March 1982 when I heard the news of Belushi's fatal overdose, and to this day I can't think of it without getting a pit in my stomach. What he contributed to the culture and what his life meant to those closest to him comes through in the ..read more

Durham, North Carolina-based festival accepting entires from December 1, 2020 to January 8, 2021 The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is shifting dates for its 2021 festival.  ​The event was previously planned for April 2021, but today the festival announced new dates: June 2-6, 2021. In a press release, Full Frame noted, "Organizers cite the [Covid-19] pandemic’s impact on industry calendars, audiences, and the documentary filmmaking community for the date change."  “Our priority continues to be the safety of our audiences and our filmmakers,” commented festival director ..read more

A Love Song for Latasha, Collective, 76 Days among other winners DOC NYC, the country's largest all-documentary film festival, announced the winners of its 2020 awards today, lauding Cecilia Aldorando's Landfall with the Grand Jury Prize. The jury praised Landfall, which focuses on Puerto Rico both before and after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, “[f]or its piercing yet poetic observational gaze, rigorous control in illuminating complex issues and the logics of disaster capitalism, and collaborative production with local activists... The ambitious scope of this film transc ..read more

January 2021 event will be "online and in the real world" Sundance is getting ready for a film festival unlike any other in its 30-year+ history. The festival, the first under the leadership of new director Tabitha Jackson, released a teaser-trailer today heralding the cinematic event, which will run from January 28 to February 3, 2021. The dates alone suggest how different this festival will be from past ones -- shorter than the normal 10-day gathering of cinephiles, industry players, filmmakers, actors, musicians and others in Park City, Utah. "...[F]or the first time ever, we are bringin ..read more

Mr. SOUL!, My Octopus Teacher, MLK/FBI and St. Louis Superman among other winners   Kirsten Johnson's Dick Johnson Is Dead has been named the best nonfiction film of the year at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards.  Johnson also was named best director by the critics group, in an announcement made by press release today instead of an awards ceremony, a break from tradition forced by the Covid-19 pandemic.  ​In Dick Johnson Is Dead the director attempts to come to terms with her aging father's mental and physical decline by staging his death in a variety of ways. The film, w ..read more

"I’m incredibly proud of what we have accomplished over the past few years," Kilmurry said IDA Executive Director Simon Kilmurry (right) with "Last Men in Aleppo" director Feras Fayyad. Photo by Matt Carey The IDA's Simon Kilmurry announced his intention today to leave his post as executive director of the documentary organization in mid-2021.  Kilmurry, former executive producer of the PBS series POV, joined the IDA in 2015. Under his leadership, the IDA expanded its grant-making capacity, notably with the establishment of the Enterprise Documentary Fund, which "provides production fu ..read more

Trailer released for Ryan White's film that opens in theaters next month In 2017 two young women entered the departures area of Malaysia's international airport, came up behind a pudgy, middle-aged man and put their hands over his eyes. Within an hour that man was dead, poisoned by VX nerve agent that entered his eyes through the women's fingers. The murdered man was Kim Jong-nam, eldest son of North Korea's former ruler Kim Jong-il and half-brother of current dictator, Kim Jong-un. The story of how Kim was bumped off and whether his assailants knew what they were doing -- or were duped into ..read more