Opening Week features films qualified for Academy Awards® consideration in the Documentary Short Film category: Bloodlines, Mississippi, The Boys and the Bees, Still Standing and A Derailment

POV Shorts, American Documentary’s award-winning showcase for independent nonfiction short films, launches its ninth season on Tuesday, November 17, 2026, marking its debut on the TIME YouTube channel through a new distribution partnership with TIME Studios. Four documentaries exploring community-centered health care, family connections, environmental hazards and institutional accountability will premiere November 17 and 19. Each film will be available to stream on demand following its premiere, with select titles also airing on PBS stations and available through additional distribution partners.

For additional press materials and programming information, including the complete lineup and premiere dates, visit the POV Shorts Season 9 Slate. Screeners are available upon request. Download Season Press Photos 

PREMIERING TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17

EPISODE 1: BLOODLINES, MISSISSIPPI
Directed by Crystal Kayiza | Produced by Harri Grace and Paul King
Created in collaboration with Nobel Prize Outreach

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 

"I entered the production aspiring to create a film that could live as an advocacy tool for Dr. Foluso Fakorede and the community working to combat amputations related to peripheral artery disease (PAD). What I experienced was a man with vision and immense talent finding home in the place of greatest need, and a community of caretakers grounded in the belief that there is another way."  — Director, Crystal Kayiza

Where to Watch: TIME YouTube channel and PBS stations beginning November 17, 2026.

EPISODE 2: THE BOYS AND THE BEES
Directed by Arielle C. Knight | Produced by Arielle C. Knight and 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 

“At a time when so much of the conversation about boys and men is framed as a crisis, The Boys and the Bees offers another picture: a Black father in rural Georgia raising his sons to be curious, tender, and brave. For the Ray family, building a life on land that was long a site of dispossession is an act of care, and a vision for the next generation.”  — Director, Arielle C. Knight

Where to Watch: TIME YouTube channel, PBS stations, Switchboard Magazine and Higher Ground beginning November 17, 2026.

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PREMIERING THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19

EPISODE 3: STILL STANDING
Directed by Victor Tadashi Suárez and Livia Albeck-Ripka

STILL STANDING follows residents confronting an unexpected crisis in the aftermath of the Los Angeles wildfires. While more than 16,000 homes and buildings were destroyed, thousands of others were left standing — and contaminated with toxic ash. Inside, testing reveals asbestos, lithium, lead and cyanide. In some cases, hygienists recommend homes be stripped to the studs. But many insurance companies tell residents it’s safe to return. Shot on 16mm from the inside of these homes, STILL STANDING blends intimate documentary with the creeping dread of horror. Christmas decorations remain up; rooms are frozen in time. Through tactile images, unsettling sound design and phone calls, the film makes an invisible danger palpable. Trapped in bureaucratic purgatory, residents face an impossible choice: Should they risk their health to go home? Trailer

"To make this film, we went inside toxic homes, wearing hazmat suits and gas masks. But our greatest challenge was creative: how do you capture a danger that's in some cases hard to see?" — Directors, Victor Tadashi Suárez and Livia Albeck-Ripka

Where to Watch: TIME YouTube channel beginning November 19, 2026.

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EPISODE 4: A DERAILMENT
Directed by Nathan Truesdell | Produced by 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.

“Though the story of East Palestine has not ended, it has been quickly forgotten in the grind of the daily news cycle. The lack of any accountability when it comes to corporate malfeasance is a reflection of America today, and we hope that A Derailment can help us to slow down and see the bigger picture of what is happening in our front yards.”   — Director, Nathan Truesdell

Where to Watch: TIME YouTube channel beginning November 19, 2026.