‘POV Shorts’ Season 9 Launches on TIME’s YouTube Channel; Opening Lineup Features Oscar® Contenders The Boys and the Bees and Bloodlines, Mississippi
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Press Release
POV Shorts’ newly acquired Bloodlines, Mississippi, from acclaimed filmmaker Crystal Kayiza and created in collaboration with Nobel Prize Outreach, opens the series as new episodes begin streaming November 17, 2026 on TIME’s YouTube channel.
Brooklyn, N.Y. — October 15, 2026 — POV Shorts, the award-winning showcase for independent nonfiction short films, announced today that TIME Studios, TIME’s Emmy Award®-winning television and film studio, will serve as its new distribution partner, with Season 9 launching November 17, 2026 on TIME's YouTube channel. The new season begins with two Oscar® contenders: the newly acquired Bloodlines, Mississippi from director Crystal Kayiza (Rest Stop, See You Next Time) and created in collaboration with Nobel Prize Outreach, and The Boys and the Bees by director Arielle Knight. The partnership brings POV Shorts to audiences across the U.S. and around the world through one of the most recognized brands in storytelling.
The collaboration unites two legacies grounded in nonfiction’s power to inform and change how people see the world. TIME has shaped visual journalism for more than a century. Since 2018, POV Shorts has championed the short documentary as an art form in its own right, winning three IDA Documentary Awards for Best Short Form Series and presented films recognized by the Oscars® and Emmys®. Together, the organizations will expand the series’ reach and bring its singular point of view to a global digital audience.
"Nine seasons in, POV Shorts has shown that a twenty-minute film can change how someone sees a problem they thought they understood,” said Opal H. Bennett, Executive Producer, POV Shorts and Senior Producer, POV. “Partnering with TIME Studios means these stories reach people who might never seek out an independent documentary — which has always been the point."
“For more than a century, TIME has been dedicated to powerful real-world reporting and extraordinary storytelling," said Justine Simons, Executive Producer, Video, TIME. “Our partnership with POV Shorts builds on that mission, bringing our audience some of the finest short documentaries being made today. We’re thrilled to collaborate on Season 9 and share these remarkable films across our platforms.”
The Season 9 alliance builds on an existing relationship between TIME Studios and POV Shorts. Last month, TIME Studios joined as distribution partner for the next cycle of the Co-Production Fund from American Documentary/POV Shorts and Chicken & Egg Films, which announced three selected projects, with Bird Street Productions serving as executive producers. TIME Studios and POV Shorts also collaborated on the Season 6 film Sol in the Garden, directed and produced by Débora Souza Silva and Emily Cohen Ibañez which follows a formerly incarcerated woman who cultivates a community garden while rebuilding her life and strengthening connections with those around her. POV Shorts Season 9 extends that connection with a new collection of films exploring the ties that sustain people and the systems that put those ties under strain.
Directed by Crystal Kayiza, produced by Harri Grace, Paul King and created in collaboration with Nobel Prize Outreach, Bloodlines, Mississippi follows Dr. Foluso Fakorede and his team at Cardiovascular Solutions of Central Mississippi as they work to prevent avoidable amputations. Set in the Mississippi Delta, Kayiza’s film looks at community-centered health care as a response to racial disparities and the barriers patients face in accessing treatment within a system shaped by historic inequality.
“Season 9 asks ‘what holds people together when the systems around them fail,’” continued Bennett. “A doctor in the Delta fighting to keep patients whole, two brothers learning their homestead, a town living inside the aftermath of a toxic derailment — these films offer answers to that question from completely different perspectives, which is exactly what short form does best.”
Also joining the line-up is the previously announced acquisition The Boys and the Bees, directed by Arielle C. Knight and produced by Knight and Sean Weiner. The film follows two brothers as they tend hives and restore their family’s Georgia homestead, deepening their bond along the way.
Hold Me Close and Tessitura both emerged from the inaugural cycle of the POV Shorts and Chicken & Egg Films co-production fund. Directed by Aurora Brachman and LaTajh Simmons-Weaver, Hold Me Close chronicles the shared life of two Queer Black women, while Brit Fryer and Lydia Cornett’s Tessitura follows trans singers navigating opera’s traditional categories of voice and gender.
Other Season 9 films include Serville Poblete’s In the Morning Sun and Arjun Fischer’s Artificial Love, which explore the search for connection through technology, and Mars Verrone’s Buckskin, which traces a pioneering Black scientist’s legacy through family memory and the redwood forest that shaped his life and work.
The slate also turns to communities confronting danger and institutional failure. Still Standing, directed by Victor Tadashi Suárez and Livia Albeck-Ripka, follows the residents of homes left toxic in the aftermath of the Altadena, CA wildfire. Arshia Shakiba’s Who Loves the Sun enters the makeshift oil refineries of war-torn northern Syria, while A Derailment, directed by Nathan Truesdell and produced by Kat Nguyen and Will Lennon, uses archival footage to revisit the East Palestine, OH train disaster and the crisis that followed.
Across Season 9, the films consider what it takes to care for one another—and for the places we call home—in a changing world. Select films will be available as part of AmDoc's POV Community Network. The slate also includes six films qualified for Academy Awards® consideration in the Documentary Short Film category: Bloodlines, Mississippi, The Boys and the Bees, A Derailment, Buckskin, In the Morning Sun and Still Standing.
POV Season 9 Slate
EPISODE 1: BLOODLINES, MISSISSIPPI
****Season Opener**** Available November 17, 2026 on TIME YouTube channel and PBS stations.
Director: Crystal Kayiza
Producers: Harri Grace, Paul King
In the heart of the Mississippi Delta, Dr. Foluso Fakorede is fighting to save lives. Set in America’s Diabetes Belt and epicenter of the amputation epidemic, Bloodlines, Mississippi examines a medical system that is stacked against the Delta’s most vulnerable residents. While expressing the many challenges faced by Dr. Fakorede and his team, the documentary shows the trauma of historic inequality and the balm of community centered care.
Cast/Participants: Dr. Foluso Fakorede & The Staff of Cardiovascular Solutions of Central Mississippi & Fusion Vascular
Trailer | RT: 22” | Countries: Sweden, United Kingdom | Year: 2025 | Language: English
Festivals & Accolades:
World Premiere, deadCenter Film Festival (2025)
Winner, Best Documentary film, Borders | No Borders Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, BlackStar Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, BronzeLens Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, New Orleans Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Double Exposure Investigative Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, DOC NYC (2025)
Official Selection, Salem Film Festival (2026)
EPISODE 2: THE BOYS AND THE BEES
Available November 17, 2026 on TIME YouTube channel, PBS Stations, and Switchboard Magazine.
Director: Arielle C. Knight
Producers: Arielle C. Knight, Sean Weiner
Through a patient, verité lens, The Boys and the Bees follows a year in the lives of Carver (6) and Aaro (4). Alive with curiosity, as they wander fields, tend hives, and grow in their relationship with the land around them. Their parents, Eliza and Nehemiah Ray—partners in life, parenthood, and beekeeping—set out to reimagine Black family life, rooting it in the wisdom of the natural world. As they work toward restoring their homestead, the film traces their quiet efforts to raise their sons close to the land, transforming the rhythms of daily life into a tender meditation on childhood, inheritance, and legacy. From small, luminous moments—a frightened boy finding the courage to tend a beehive—a larger story unfolds: one of reparative healing and the deliberate work of building a family bound to the land. The Boys and the Bees is a tender yet radical portrait of self-determination, kinship, and love.
Cast/Participants: Nehemiah Ray, Eliza Ray, Carver Ray, Aaro Ray
Trailer | Photos | Press Kit | RT: 19” | Country: USA | Year: 2025 | Language: English
Festivals & Accolades:
World Premiere, Winner, Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction, Sundance Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Short Film Audience Award, Atlanta Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Best Documentary Short and Best of Fest , Nevada City Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Best Documentary Short, Ouray Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Best Short Documentary, Salute Your Shorts (2026)
Winner, Best Documentary Short, BEYOND: The Cary Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Sheffield DocFest (2026)
Official Selection, True/False Film Fest (2026)
EPISODE 3: STILL STANDING
Available November 19, 2026 on TIME YouTube channel
Directors: Victor Tadashi Suárez, Livia Albeck-Ripka
Still Standing chronicles Altadena, California residents confronting an unexpected crisis in the aftermath of the January 2025 wildfire that destroyed more than 9,000 homes and other structures. While some houses remained standing, they were left contaminated by toxic ash and debris containing lead, asbestos, and other hazardous materials, raising questions about whether they are safe to inhabit. Despite these environmental hazards, insurance companies have declared some of these houses "habitable," leaving residents to navigate questions of coverage as well as limited regulatory guidance around contamination and remediation. Shot entirely from the inside of toxic homes on 16mm film, Still Standing considers what it means to survive one disaster only to face another and follows residents as they grapple with the impossible question of whether to risk their health to return home.
Trailer | Photos | Press Kit | RT: 10” | Country: USA | Year: 2025 | Language: English
Festivals & Accolades:
World Premiere, Sundance Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Jury Award for Best Short Film, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Jury Award for Best Doc Short, Seattle Int'l Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Jury Award for Short Short, Aspen Film - Shortsfest (2026)
Winner, Jury Award for Best Cinematography, Nevada City Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Jury Award for Best Doc Short, BendFilm (2026)
Official Selection, CAMERIMAGE (2026)
Official Selection, SFFILM Doc Stories (2026)
Official Selection, AFI Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Hamptons Int'l Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Slamdance (2026)
Official Selection, Palm Springs Int'l Shortfest (2026)
Official Selection, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Mountainfilm Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, DC/DOX (2026)
Official Selection, Rooftop Films (2026)
Official Selection, Hawai'i Int'l Film Festival (2026)
EPISODE 4: A DERAILMENT
Available November 19, 2026 on TIME YouTube channelDirector: Nathan Truesdell
Producer: Kat Nguyen, Will Lennon
At 8:55 PM on February 3, 2023, a freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Told entirely through found footage and news archive, A Derailment puts you in the center of disaster. As local news coverage and publicly circulated footage unfold in real time, the film reveals not only the immediate catastrophe but the deepening crisis that followed—raising urgent questions about oversight, accountability, and the failures that allowed it to escalate.
RT: 26” | Country: USA | Year: 2026 | Language: English
Festivals & Accolades:
World Premiere, Big Sky (2026) Winner Best Documentary Short
Winner, Special Jury Prize for a Documentary Short, Independent Film Festival Boston (2026)
Winner Best Documentary Short, El Paso Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Wyoming Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, AMDocs (2026)
Official Selection, Sidewalk Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection,Tallgrass Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, DC/DOX (2026)
Official Selection, Rooftop Films Summer Series (2026)
Official Selection, Documentary Honorable Mention, Indie Street Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Montclair Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Woodstock Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Drunken Film Festival Oakland (2026)
Official Selection, Bend Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, New/Next Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, New Hampshire Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Unorthodocs (2026)
EPISODE 5: IN THE MORNING SUN
Available November 24, 2026 on TIME YouTube channel
Director: Serville Poblete
In a quiet Toronto apartment, a Filipino mother finds comfort in her Alexa, turning to it for weather updates, love songs, and the time back home in the Philippines. These everyday exchanges become a connection to a family she left behind. In the Morning Sun is a gentle portrait of aging, migration, memory and the meaning of home.
Cast/Participants: Lydia Poblete, Almario Poblete
Press Kit | RT: 21’ 21” | Countries: Canada, Philippines | Year: 2025 | Languages: English, Kapampangan
Festivals & Accolades:
World Premiere, Winner, Grand Jury Prize, SXSW (2026)
Winner, Golden Gate Award, San Francisco Int'l Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Golden Reel, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (2026)
EPISODE 6: HOLD ME CLOSE
Available November 24, 2026 on TIME YouTube channel
Directors: Aurora Brachman, LaTajh Simmons-Weaver
Hold Me Close explores the unique power and complexity of the relationship between Corinne and Tiana, two Queer Black womxn, sharing a life and home together. Drawing on audio the couple recorded themselves over the course of a season and intimate domestic scenes captured on Super 16mm film, the documentary follows them through the joys and challenges of everyday life, offering a deeply personal portrait of love, partnership and home.
Press Kit | RT: 19” | Country: USA| Year: 2025 | Language: English
Festivals & Accolades:
World Premiere, Sundance Film Festival (2025)
Winner, Best LGBTQ+ Short Film Award, Palm Springs Int’l Shortfest (2025)
Official Selection, True/False (2025)
Official Selection, Full Frame (2025)
Official Selection, DC/DOX (2025)
Official Selection, Frameline Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Millenium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Inside Out Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Norwegian Short Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Cinéma Spoutnik (2025)
Official Selection, Flying Film Festival (2026)
EPISODE 7: TESSITURA
Available November 26, 2026 on TIME YouTube channel
Directors: Brit Fryer, Lydia Cornett
Blending historical overview with character portraits, Tessitura explores the entangled ways that voice, character, and gender are continuously reformulated in opera by those who contend with these connections daily. The film delves into the ways that contemporary transgender opera singers navigate the traditional rules and categories of their art form, interweaving personal stories with historical contexts to highlight the ongoing dialogue about gender fluidity in opera. By purposefully deemphasizing the historical figures of the castrati and women performing trouser roles, the film instead focuses on transgender opera singers who are contending with the constraints their genre imposes.
Cast/Participants: Breanna Sinclairé, Katherine Goforth, Lucas Bouk, Dr. Naomi André
Trailer | Photos | RT: 18” | Country: USA | Year: 2025 | Languages: English, Italian, French, German
Festivals & Accolades:
World Premiere, Big Sky Film Festival (2025)
Winner, Best Short Film, Telluride Mountainfilm (2025)
Winner, Outstanding Documentary Short, Frameline Film Festival (2025)
Winner, Best Short Documentary, Snake Alley Festival of Film (2025)
Winner, Best Documentary Short Port Townsend Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, True/False Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, DOC NYC Short List (2025)
Official Selection, Athens Int'l Film/Video Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Riverside Short Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Margaret Mead Film Festival, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY (2025)
Official Selection, Cinema Columbus (2025)
Official Selection, Rooftop Films (2025)
Official Selection, DC/DOX (2025)
Official Selection, Palm Springs Int'l Shortfest (2025)
Official Selection, Blackstar Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Camden Int'l Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, New/Next Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, New Orleans Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Backyard Docs (2025)
Official Selection, Crested Butte Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Gimli Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, GAZE Int'l LGBTQIA Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, Les Mains Gauches (2025)
Official Selection, Montclair Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection,Tacoma Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection, New Hampshire Film Festival (2025)
Official Selection,The Roxy Cinema: Roxy Reelness (2025)
EPISODE 8: WHO LOVES THE SUN
Available November 26, 2026 on TIME YouTube channel
Director: Arshia Shakiba
In war-torn northern Syria, Who Loves the Sun delves into the world of makeshift oil refineries and the stark realities of life within this post-apocalyptic landscape. Mahmood is a prominent figure in these operations, navigating harsh working conditions and complex local dynamics.
Trailer | Press Kit | RT: 24” | Country: Canada | Year: 2024 | Language: Arabic
Festivals & Accolades:
World Premiere, Venice Film Festival (2024)
Winner, Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film, Venice Int'l Film Festival, (2024)
Official Selection, Toronto Int'l Film Festival (2024)
Official Selection, Mirage Film Festival (2024)
Official Selection, Bogotá Short Film Festival (2024)
Official Selection, Clermont-Ferrand Int'l Short Film Festival (2025)
EPISODE 9: BUCKSKIN
Available December 1, 2026 on TIME YouTube channel
Director & Producer: Mars Verrone
Filmmaker Mars Verrone reflects on the life and legacy of their grandfather, Carroll B. Williams Jr. (1929–2024), a groundbreaking scientist whose career was shaped by his love of forests and his persistence in the face of institutional racism. Williams was the first Black American to earn a doctorate in forestry and entomology and the first Black scientist hired by the U.S. Forest Service, later joining the faculties of Yale and UC Berkeley. Shot on 16mm film among the redwoods and the carefully arranged spaces of Williams’s home, Buckskin weaves intimate conversations between his daughter and grandchild with personal memorabilia and images of the landscapes he worked to protect. As Williams’s memory begins to fade, the film reflects on family, legacy, race, and the natural world across generations, while the redwoods stand witness to a lifetime.
Press Kit | RT: 17” 20’ | Country: USA | Year: 2026 | Language: English
Festivals & Accolades:
World Premiere, True/False Film Fest (2026)
Winner, Best Black Lens Short Film, Sidewalk Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Freedom 250 Award, Nashville Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, New Directors/New Films (2026)
Official Selection, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, DOXA Documentary Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, San Francisco Int'l Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Indie Lisboa Int'l Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Mountainfilm Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Provincetown Int'l Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, DC/DOX Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Palm Springs Int'l ShortFest (2026)
Official Selection, Rooftop Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, BlackStar Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Hudson Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Mimesis Documentary Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, New/Next Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Chicago Int'l Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, New Orleans Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, BFI London Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, Montclair Film Festival (2026)
Official Selection, AFI Fest (2026)
Official Selection, SCAD Savannah Film Festival (2026)
EPISODE 10: ARTIFICIAL LOVE
Available December 1, 2026 on TIME YouTube channel
Director: Arjun Fischer
Producers: Dani Orlando, Kate Planting
After a lifetime of failed relationships a man finds an unexpected romance in ChatGPT, leading to an unconventional marriage that challenges the boundaries of love and what it means to be human.
Trailer | Photos | Press Kit | RT: 23” | Country: USA | Year: 2026 | Language: English
Festivals & Accolades:
World Premiere, Santa Fe Int’l Film Festival (2026)
Bronze Winner, Documentary, 53rd Student Academy Awards - Toronto Int’l Film Festival (2026)
Winner, Outstanding Cinematography Documentary Award, USC School of Cinematic Arts First Look (2026)
Winner, ASC Student Heritage Awards - Haskell Wexler Documentary Cinematography Award (2026)
Double Exposure Film Festival (2026)
About
About POV Shorts
POV Shorts launched in 2018 as one of the first PBS series dedicated to bold and timely short-form documentaries. Known for its distinctive curation, the series has broadcast acclaimed titles including Emmy®-nominated Earthrise, Water Warriors and The Changing Same; Emmy® Award winner The Love Bugs; Academy Award® winner Days of Waiting; and Academy Award-shortlisted films A Broken House and Águilas.
The series won Best Short Form Series at the IDA Documentary Awards in 2020, 2022 and 2023, with A Broken House receiving the award for Best Short in 2022. Series titles In the Absence, A Night at the Garden, 4.1 Miles, Joe’s Violin and Hardwood have all received Academy Award nominations.
About American Documentary, Inc.
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. A catalyst for public culture, AmDoc develops collaborative engagement initiatives around socially relevant content across television, digital platforms and community settings—from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and civic participation.
AmDoc’s programming includes its multi-Emmy®, Academy Award® and Peabody Award-winning flagship series POV; the Academy Award- and Emmy Award-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, Acton Family Giving, Park Foundation and Perspective Fund. Additional funding comes from PBS, the National Endowment for the Arts, the 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, GBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.
About TIME Studios
From one of the most globally iconic brands, TIME Studios is an Emmy Award®-winning television and film studio as well as an award-winning immersive and branded content studio, focused on the development, production, and distribution of premium unscripted and scripted storytelling that moves the world. With technical innovation and a brand defining visual language that dates back more than 100 years, TIME Studios aims to impact communities and the world at large with ideas that forge true progress. Combining the industry’s leading creators with TIME, one of the most trusted brands that reaches an audience of over 120 million people globally, TIME Studios is uniquely positioned to bring massive audiences to the world’s most impactful stories.