'On Her Shoulders' Premiering on PBS Monday, July 22

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On Her Shoulders

POV Season 32

Women take charge this season, at the helm as directors of over half the feature films.

Roll Red Roll

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

At a pre-season party in small-town Steubenville, Ohio, the now-infamous sexual assault of a teenage girl by members of the beloved high school football team took place. Roll Red Roll is a true-crime thriller that goes behind the headlines to ...

The Gospel of Eureka

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

The spotlight is beaming on drag shows and a passion play in a small Arkansas town. The Gospel of Eureka takes a personal and often comical look at negotiating differences between religion and belief through performance, political action and partnership ...

Call Her Ganda

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Feature Film

When Jennifer Laude, a Filipina trans woman, is brutally murdered by a U.S. Marine, three women intimately invested in the case—an activist attorney (Virgie Suarez), a transgender journalist (Meredith Talusan) and Jennifer’s mother (Julita “Nanay” Laude)—galvanize ...

Bisbee '17

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Feature Film

Radically combining documentary and narrative elements, Bisbee '17 follows several members of the close-knit community in Bisbee, Arizona, a former mining town, as they commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Bisbee Deportation, when 1,200 immigrant miners were violently taken ...

On Her Shoulders

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

Airing July 22
Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi, survived genocide and sexual slavery committed by ISIS. Repeating her story to the world, this ordinary girl finds herself thrust onto the international stage as the voice of her people. Away from the podium, she ...

Inventing Tomorrow

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

Airing July 29
Passionate teenage innovators from around the globe create cutting-edge solutions to confront the world’s environmental threats—found right in their own backyards—while navigating the doubts and insecurities that mark adolescence. These inspiring teens prepare their projects for the ...

The Distant Barking of Dogs

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

Airing August 5
The Distant Barking of Dogs follows the life of 10-year-old Ukrainian boy Oleg over a year, witnessing the gradual erosion of his innocence beneath the pressures of the on-going war in Eastern Ukraine. Having no other place to go, Oleg ...

Happy Winter

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

Airing August 12
Every summer on Palermo's Mondello beach, over 1,000 cabins are built in preparation of the Ferragosto holiday. Centered around a family who goes into debt, three women holding onto the feeling of youth, and a politician seeking votes, Happy ...

Farmsteaders

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

Airing September 2
Clear-eyed and intimate,Farmsteaders follows Nick Nolan and his young family on a journey to resurrect his late grandfather’s dairy farm as agriculture moves toward large-scale farming. A study of place and persistence, Farmsteaders points an honest and tender ...

Grit

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

Airing September 9
A multinational natural gas drilling company is believed to be responsible for the displacement of 60,000 people in an East Java village left submerged by a tsunami of mud. Fed up with the company's delayed cleanup, Dian, a politically ...

The Silence of Others

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

Airing September 30
The Silence of Others reveals the epic struggle of victims of Spain’s 40-year dictatorship under Francisco Franco as they continue to seek justice four decades into democracy. Filmed over six years, the film follows the survivors organizing the groundbreaking ...

América

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

Airing October 7
Life’s easy for Diego, who works in a surf shop and performs on the boardwalk for tourists. Yet when his grandmother América injures herself, and his father— América's sole caretaker—is imprisoned for negligence, Diego returns to his hometown ...

The Feeling of Being Watched

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

Airing October 14
In the Chicago suburb where journalist Assia Boundaoui grew up, most residents in her Muslim immigrant neighborhood believe they are under surveillance. Assia investigates and uncovers FBI documents about "Operation Vulgar Betrayal," one of the largest pre-9/11 counterterrorism ...

BLOWIN' UP

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

Airing August 12
Working within a broken criminal justice system, a team of rebel heroines work to change the way women arrested for prostitution are prosecuted. With intimate camerawork that lingers on details and brings the Queens criminal courtroom to life, BLOWIN' UP ...

The Rescue List

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Trailer

In a rehabilitation shelter in Ghana, two children are recovering from enslavement to fishermen. But their story takes an unexpected turn when their rescuer embarks on another mission and asks the children for help. Charting the unfolding drama, The Rescue ...

Now Streaming

StoryCorps Shorts: Pride Month

Enjoy these animated shorts of LGBTQ+ stories from our partners at StoryCorps!

StoryCorps Shorts: Love Lost, And Found

  • Short Film
  • 2019

Short Film

Sue McConnell and Kristyn Weed are best friends and Vietnam-era veterans. Although they didn’t serve in the war together, they share a story of courage — on and off the battlefield. They met at a transgender veterans’ support group and ...

StoryCorps Shorts: A Life Worth Living

  • Short Film
  • 2019

Short Film

MJ Seide never thought that she would live a happy, fulfilling life. Then she met her future partner, who at the time had been married to a man and raising children. MJ remembers how it felt to fall in love ...

StoryCorps Shorts: The Door She Opened

  • Short Film
  • 2019

Short Film

In 2018, at the age of 63, Dee Westenhauser came out as a transgender woman. But growing up in El Paso, Texas, in the 1950s, she had a hard time fitting in. Dee remembers how her Aunt Yaya gave her ...

StoryCorps Shorts: A Life, Complete

  • Short Film
  • 2019

Short Film

John Banvard and Jerry Nadeau are military veterans who served in World War II and Vietnam, respectively. John, 100, and Jerry, 72, sat down at the veterans home where they live to reflect on nearly 25 years together.

StoryCorps Shorts: A Certain Kind of Love

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

The difficulties faced by same-sex couples have created far too many stories of unrequited love. Glenda Elliott's story is one of them: Glenda came to StoryCorps to remember Lauree, the woman she fell in love with in small-town Georgia, at ...

StoryCorps Shorts: The Saint of Dry Creek

  • Short Film
  • 2015

Short Film

Patrick Haggerty grew up the son of a dairy farmer in rural Dry Creek, Washington, during the 1950s. As a teenager, Pat began to understand he was gay — something he thought he was hiding well. But one day, after ...

Now Streaming

POV Playlist

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The Workers Cup

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Feature Film

In 2022, Qatar will host the biggest sporting event in the world, the FIFA World Cup. But right now, far from the bright lights, star athletes and adoring fans, the tournament is being built on the backs of 1.6 ...

The War to Be Her

  • Feature Film
  • 2018

Feature Film

In Waziristan, "one of the most dangerous places on earth", Maria Toorpakai defies the Taliban, disguising herself as a boy so she can play sports freely. But when she becomes a rising star, her true identity is revealed and death ...

Swim Team

  • Feature Film
  • 2017

Feature Film

Parents of a boy on the autism spectrum form a competitive swim team, recruiting other teens on the spectrum and training them with high expectations and zero pity. Swim Team chronicles the extraordinary rise of three diverse young athletes, capturing ...

Pyne Poynt

  • Feature Film
  • 2019

Feature Film

Numbed by despair, the youth of Camden, NJ, one of America’s poorest cities, don’t know who to fear more-- the police or the violent drug dealers. Resident Bryan Morton leads a charge to reclaim Pyne Poynt Park as ...

Introducing: POV Shorts

You have no idea how long it takes to make 10 minutes.

Earthrise

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

Earthrise tells the story of the first image captured of the Earth from space in 1968. Told solely by the Apollo 8 astronauts, the film recounts their experiences and memories and explores the beauty, awe and grandeur of the Earth ...

GIVE

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

GIVE explores collective representations of history, memory and culture; where pasts, presents and futures are molded by the blending of imagination, facts and love.

Public Money

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

Across New York City, a bold experiment in participatory democracy is underway. Since 2012, the city council has steadily increased investment in a process called “participatory budgeting”, wherein community members gain a role in deciding how to spend part of ...

Balloonfest

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

The city of Cleveland was abuzz on September 27, 1986. Over 1.5 million balloons were about to be released at once, breaking the world record. What could go wrong?

A Debtors' Prison

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

In St. Louis County, the home of police-shooting victim Michael Brown, a practice with a long history has become systematic: the operation of modern-day debtors’ prisons.A Debtors' Prison follows two plaintiffs in an unfolding court case, Samantha Jenkins and ...

Into My Life

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

Growing up in the largest affordable housing cooperative in Brooklyn, Cassandra’s world was artfully framed by her mother’s Super-8 camera. Today, still living in the same place, Cassandra examines and edits these remarkable films, gaining insight into the ...

A Night At The Garden

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

In 1939, New York's Madison Square Garden was host to an enormous—and shocking—gathering, where 22,000 Americans convened at an event that has been forgotten by history.

Graven Image

  • Short Film
  • 2018

Short Film

Using over 100 years of archival footage, director Sierra Pettengill explores the history of the largest Confederate monument: Georgia’s Stone Mountain.

Related events

July 31
Screening

Quest

School District of Philadelphia Education Center
August 2
Screening

Gospel of Eureka Screening & Filmmaker, Subject Q+A

The Auditorium
August 13
Screening

Farmsteaders

Marathon County Public Library

More Events

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