POV Presents For Venida, For Kalief, A Poetic Meditation on Grief, Justice, and the Transformative Power of Community to End Mass Incarceration
Press Release
Premieres Monday, July 27, 2026 on PBS Television Nationwide and Streaming on PBS.org and the PBS App Until September 27, 2026
Download Press Photos • #ForVenidaForKaliefPBS
Sisa Bueno's intimate documentary is co-produced with ITVS and presented in partnership with Black Public Media
Brooklyn, N.Y. – July 16, 2026 – POV, the multi Emmy® Award-winning independent nonfiction film series, will premiere “For Venida, For Kalief,” a powerful and deeply reflective documentary by producer, director, and cinematographer Sisa Bueno on Monday, July 27, 2026, at 10pmET/9C (check local listings), on PBS Television, and will be available to stream until September 27, 2026. A co-presentation with Black Public Media and co-produced with ITVS, the film centers the poetry and activism of Venida Brodnax Browder, mother of Kalief Browder, whose nearly three years of detention at Rikers Island without a trial and subsequent death became a catalyst for jail (pretrial detention) as well as solitary confinement and criminal justice reform efforts across the United States. Additionally, the documentary is also produced by David Felix Sutcliffe and Paola Gadala-Maria, and narrated by Jasmine Mans. Now in its 39th year, POV is America’s longest running non-fiction series.
“For Venida, For Kalief” premieres at a pivotal time for both New York and the national movement for incarceration reform. Just weeks before the film's debut, New York City reached a major milestone in its decades-long effort to close the Rikers Island jail complex when Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced the permanent closure of one of its facilities. The action advances plans to transform portions of the island into a renewable energy hub called Renewable Rikers, an effort explored in the film as part of its broader examination of justice and healing.
Through the Browder family's story, “For Venida, For Kalief” highlights the devastating consequences of prolonged remand and the role local jails play as the entry point to the broader carceral system. Unlike prisons, which house incarcerated people following conviction, local jails primarily detain people awaiting trial or serving short sentences. By illuminating this often-overlooked distinction, the film encourages audiences to look more closely at the systems operating within their own local communities and the impact they have on individuals and families.
Hailed by The Guardian’s Briana Ellis-Gibbs, as "poetic and thought-provoking," “For Venida, For Kalief” blends vérité filmmaking, poetic imagery, and rare archival footage of 1970s New York featuring the Black Panthers and the Young Lords. Director Sisa Bueno uses Venida Brodnax Browder's poetry as the film’s emotional compass, placing Kalief’s story within a broader historical context, while exploring grief, resilience, and the enduring impact of mass incarceration on communities of color, including Black, Latino, Indigenous, Middle Eastern, and Asian communities.
“The two words that primarily guide me as an artist are ‘transcendence’ and ‘resonance,’ so I feel like my work tends to be layered and expansive in nature,” said Sisa Bueno, director, For Venida, For Kalief. “I wanted to make a film that presented Kalief’s death as an inciting incident that continues to ripple out and impact the entire country. Making a non-traditional film like this was very challenging and required a lot of trust from my film partners, and I am so grateful to public media for supporting this film from development with the ITVS Development Grant and Open Call, and to finally air on POV is truly a wonderful culmination of this incredible film journey.”
Accompanying the broadcast is an impact campaign focused on community healing, public education, and civic engagement. Through healing-centered screenings and partnerships with organizations and impacted families, the campaign seeks to deepen public understanding of the carceral system, elevate the voices of impacted people, and encourage local action and community oversight.
"For Venida, For Kalief arrives at a critical moment; it is both an intimate portrait of a mother's enduring love and a powerful reflection on the systems that shape countless lives across America," said Chris White, Executive Producer of POV and American Documentary. "Sisa Bueno's poetic approach invites audiences to see beyond headlines and statistics to the humanity of impacted people, while reminding us that meaningful change begins with local communities willing to imagine something better."
"For Venida, For Kalief" made its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival in 2025 in the U.S. Documentary Competition and was an Official Selection at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (2025) and the Cucalorus Film Festival (2025). It was also a Finalist at the San Quentin Film Festival (2025).
"For Venida, For Kalief" is a co-production with ITVS and a co-presentation with Black Public Media. Sisa Bueno is the producer, director, and cinematographer. David Felix Sutcliffe and Paola Gadala-Maria are also producers. Kristan Sprague and Daniel Chávez Ontiveros are the editors. Jasmine Mans is the narrator. Mattie Akers is the archival producer. Input Post and Alejandro Raspa are the sound designers. The executive producers are Carrie Lozano, ITVS, and Erika Dilday and Chris White for American Documentary | POV.
Credits
Producer/Director/Cinematographer: Sisa Bueno
Producers: David Felix Sutcliffe, Paola Gadala-Maria
Participants: Venida Brodnax Browder, Akeem Browder, Kamal Browder, Deion Browder, Zohran Mamdani
Executive Producers: Carrie Lozano, Erika Dilday, Chris White
Screenwriter/Poetry: Venida Brodnax Browder
Editors: Kristan Sprague, Daniel Chávez Ontiveros
Associate Producers: Courtney Symone Staton, Yurema Pérez-Hinojosa, Noura Y. Ahmed
Archival Producer: Mattie Akers
Narrator: Jasmine Mans
Sound Design: Input Post, Alejandro Raspa
Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2025
“For Venida, For Kalief” will be available for streaming concurrently with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS Video App, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. PBS station members can view many series, documentaries and specials via PBS Passport. For more information about PBS Passport, visit the PBS Passport FAQ website. In addition to standard closed captioning for the film, POV, in partnership with audio description service DiCapta, provides real-time audio interpretations for audiences with sensory disabilities.
About the Filmmakers
Sisa Bueno, Producer, Director, Cinematographer, "For Venida, For Kalief"
Originally from New York City, Sisa Bueno is a Director-Cinematographer dedicated to exploring powerful ripple effects within humanity. Her most recent feature film "For Venida, For Kalief" had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival in the U.S. Documentary Competition, and has been covered by Democracy Now!, The Guardian, NBC and NPR. Her work has received support from the Ford Foundation, ITVS-PBS Open Call, Sundance Documentary Fund, International Documentary Association (IDA), Firelight Media Lab Fellowship, and the Film Independent Documentary Lab Fellowship among others. She studied both film production and interactive technologies at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University (NYU).
David Felix Sutcliffe, Producer, "For Venida, For Kalief"
David Felix Sutcliffe is a Sundance and Emmy®Award-winning producer whose films have been distributed by Netflix, PBS, Hulu, BBC, Canal+ and screened at Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, CPH:DOX, and True/False. David’s debut feature (T)ERROR (Independent Lens / Netflix) won a Sundance Special Jury Prize, an Emmy®, an Independent Spirit Award nomination, and was featured in The New York Times Magazine. David is an alum of the Sundance Creative Producing Lab and Edit and Story Lab, a former Soros Equality Fellow and Pew Fellow, and a recipient of the IDA’s Emerging Documentary Filmmaker of the Year Award.
Paola Gadala-Maria, Producer, "For Venida, For Kalief"
Paola Gadala-Maria is a New York-based, Miami bred filmmaker. Her Hispanic and Middle Eastern heritage and Miami upbringing inform her unique storytelling perspective. Her impressive portfolio includes producing the dark comedy feature Good Idea, the documentary feature For Venida, For Kalief (Tribeca 2025), and the documentary series Fight for Glory: 2024 World Series for Apple TV+. She has worked alongside award-winning director Mike Barker on the Netflix feature Luckiest Girl Alive, and her credits span across major platforms including Netflix, AppleTV+, Discovery+, Peacock, and MSNBC. Paola creates content that explores the human psyche and social systems through compassionate yet unflinching storytelling. Working fluidly in both narrative and documentary spaces, she thrives on creative collaborations with directors and filmmakers who share her passion for authentic, impactful storytelling.
About
About POV
Building on five 2026 News & Documentary Emmy® nominations, POV remains one of the most highly-acclaimed documentary series in broadcast and streaming. Recent honors include a 2024 Emmy® win for Eat Your Catfish (POV Season 37), a 2023 Emmy® win for The Last Out (POV Season 36), and a Peabody Award for While We Watched (POV Season 36), marking the eleventh consecutive year a POV film has been nominated for a Peabody and its 28th win. Additional recognition includes an IDA Documentary Award win for Best Curated Series in 2022 and nominations in that category for three consecutive years (2023, 2024, 2025) and the inclusion of seven POV films in Indiewire’s “The 50 Best Documentaries of the 21st Century”: Faya Dayi (2021), The Mole Agent (2020), Minding The Gap (2018), Cameraperson (2016), The Look of Silence (2015), The Act of Killing (2013) and After Tiller (2013). Across its history, POV films and projects have garnered more than 108 News & Documentary Emmy® nominations and won 52 Emmy Awards®, 29 Peabody Awards, 17 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards® and the first-ever George Polk Documentary Film.
Produced by American Documentary, POV is the longest-running independent documentary showcase on American television presenting films on PBS since 1988 that capture the full spectrum of the human experience, with a long commitment to centering women and people of color in front of and behind the camera. The series has introduced generations of viewers to groundbreaking work from filmmakers including Laura Poitras, Jonathan Demme, Nanfu Wang, Frederick Wiseman, Emiko Omori, Janus Metz Pedersen and Ava DuVernay, and to landmark films such as Tongues Untied (1989), Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse (1992), Rabbit in the Room (1999), Of Civil Wrongs & Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story (2001), Made in L.A. (2007), American Promise (2013), Not Going Quietly (2021), A House Made of Splinters (2022) and the mini-series And She Could be Next (2020). Since its launch in 2018, POV Shorts has expanded the series’ commitment to short-form storytelling, with films including A Broken House recognized on the Academy Award® shortlist. Extending beyond broadcast, POV engages audiences through streaming on PBS platforms, free educational resources and a nationwide community network that sparks dialogue around urgent social issues. Award. Learn more at pbs.org/pov and follow @povdocs on social media.
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American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia organization dedicated to creating, identifying and presenting contemporary stories that express opinions and perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media outlets. A catalyst for public culture, AmDoc develops collaborative strategic engagement initiatives around socially relevant content across television, digital platforms and in community settings, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and civic participation. AmDoc’s programming includes its multi–Emmy®, Oscar®, and Peabody Award–winning flagship series POV, the Oscar® and Emmy® winning POV Shorts, and America ReFramed. As part of its ongoing digital expansion, AmDoc is extending the reach of its work through expanded documentary programming on YouTube, connecting independent documentary storytelling with broader audiences and evolving how public media reaches viewers today. Follow @americandocumentary on social media.
Major funding for POV is provided by the Open Society Foundations, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, Park Foundation, and Perspective Fund. Additional funding comes from PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Acton Family Giving, and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.