POV Sets Season 39 Slate, Launching July 20, 2026 on PBS With Emmy®Award Winner Violet Du Feng’s The Dating Game
Brooklyn, N.Y. — June 8, 2026 — American Documentary (AmDoc) today unveiled the 39th season of its flagship series POV, set to premiere Monday, July 20, 2026 on PBS stations with The Dating Game, directed by Emmy® Award-winner Violet Du Feng. The season arrives with a slate of films that track individuals confronting larger social forces shaping modern life. The new lineup follows a strong run of recognition for the series, including eight recent News & Documentary Emmy® nominations. POV remains America’s longest-running non-fiction series.
For nearly four decades, POV — the multi–Emmy®, Oscar®, and Peabody Award–winning series — has presented independent, filmmaker-driven storytelling to national audiences. Season 39 brings together films from around the world that engage with systems of power, questions of identity, and the ways individuals define their own stories. Grounded in intimate experiences, the slate considers how people navigate belonging, memory and connection across different cultural and social contexts.
“Independent documentary storytelling helps us make sense of a rapidly changing world,” said Erika Dilday, Executive Director, American Documentary and Executive Producer of POV and America ReFramed. “At a time when public trust, lived experience, and factual reporting are increasingly under pressure, our mission to support nonfiction filmmakers and the craft of documentary storytelling feels more essential than ever. That commitment has defined the series for nearly 40 years and continues to guide our work today.”
“This season brings together films that look closely at how people are shaping their own lives within larger systems—asking how we connect, who gets to tell the story and what it takes to reclaim our agency,” said Chris White, Executive Producer, POV. “Our focus remains on supporting filmmakers and bringing deeply personal stories to the screen, offering perspectives we might not otherwise see. It’s a privilege to help those voices be heard.”
Opening the season, “The Dating Game,” directed by Violet Du Feng, and produced by Feng, Joanna Natasegara, James Costa, and Mette Cheng Munthe-Kaas, follows three working-class bachelors navigating a dating landscape reshaped by politics and economy in a country where eligible men are estimated to outnumber women by 30 million. As they join an intensive seven-day dating camp led by one of China’s most sought-after coaches in a last-ditch effort to find love. Blending moments of humor and vulnerability, the film offers an intimate look at the pressures shaping modern connection and belonging.
Across the season, films continue this exploration through stories rooted in justice, migration, cultural memory, care, and narrative perspectives. In “For Venida, For Kalief”—a co-presentation with Black Public Media and co-produced with ITVS—producer/director/cinematographer Sisa Bueno presents a powerful reflection on justice through the poetry and activism of Venida Brodnax Browder following the incarceration of her son Kalief Browder, weaving together intimate storytelling and archival imagery from 1970s New York featuring the Black Panthers, to illustrate the enduring impact of mass incarceration on communities of color. “The Gas Station Attendant”—a co-presentation with CAAM—directed by Karla Murthy and produced by Murthy and Rajal Pitroda, explores migration, identity, and belonging through intimately recorded phone calls and home movies that trace Murthy’s father’s remarkable journey from the streets of India to building a life in America.
Questions of institutional legacy and control over cultural space emerge in “How to Build a Library,” directed and produced by Maia Lekow and Christopher King, following two Kenyan women working to transform a once whites-only Nairobi library into a vibrant public and cultural hub. As they navigate local politics, raise funds for its restoration, and confront the lingering legacy of colonialism, the film captures their efforts to reclaim the space as a resource for their community.
In “Arrest the Midwife”—co-produced with ITVS—directed by Elaine Epstein and produced by Epstein and Robin Hessman, the arrest of trusted midwives serving Amish and Mennonite families in rural New York ignites an unexpected rebellion, as women from these communities break from tradition and emerge as political activists, joining the broader fight for reproductive justice. “Remake,” directed and produced by pioneering autobiographical filmmaker Ross McElwee, follows McElwee as he reevaluates his approach to filmmaking following the death of his son, as he struggles to convince himself that the lively boy in the home movies is now gone.
POV episodes premiere Monday nights at 10 p.m. ET (check local listings) and will stream simultaneously with broadcast and be available on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS app, which is available on iOS, Apple TV, Android mobile and tablets, Android/Google TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV and tablets, Comcast, Samsung Smart TV, VIZIO and LG Smart TVs. For more information, visit the PBS Passport FAQ.
In addition to standard closed captioning, POV partners with DiCapta to provide audio description services for audiences with sensory disabilities. Films are accompanied by free educational resources, with many available for local screenings through POV’s Community Network digital lending library.