Press Release
October 17 2023
POV Announces ‘Our America: Documentaries in Dialogue’ Community and Station 2023 Grantees
Overview
Brooklyn, N.Y. – October 17, 2023 – American Documentary | POV and POV Engage announced today the seven recipients of the 2023 ‘Our America: Documentaries in Dialogue’. This high impact initiative mobilizes regional PBS stations and neighboring organizations to design and facilitate their own engagement events leveraging full-length, documentary POV films. Through intentional funding, ‘Our America’ cohorts are empowered to respond to and reflect the needs of their communities while using POV films to connect audiences, inspire civic dialogue, action, and understanding around social issues.
The 2023 ‘Our America’ grantees represent an expansive geographical cross-section of public media and civic-minded organizations. Akakū Maui Community Media, Maui County’s tri-island public access television station in Kahului, Hawaii promotes the creation and distribution of media by, and for, Maui County. Longtime POV community partner Cineculture Club, Oklahoma State University’s student organization, that uses film and post-screening discussion to promote social and cultural awareness and addresses diversity issues. PBS Utah promotes the tradition of fact-based journalism and the importance of media literacy for future generations.
PBS station South Carolina ETV, based in Columbia, collaborates with local groups to develop deeper engagement with issues that matter to their community. WTJX in the U.S. Virgin Islands develops engagement projects designed to enhance the welfare of all island residents. ‘Our America’ returning grantees are Alaska Public Media (APM) and Prisons to Professionals (P2P). AKPM partners with an array of local, regional and statewide organizations to make a more informed and connected life possible for all Alaskans. Based in Baltimore, Maryland, P2P is a national organization that invests in the lives and potential of justice-impacted folks through mentoring, advocacy and policy change.
‘Our America’ was established in response to the polarizing repercussions resulting from the 2016 elections. The initiative fosters conversation between regional PBS stations and viewers of different cultural backgrounds through programs designed to find common ground in an ever changing social, economic, and political landscape. Entering its seventh year, ‘Our America’ has provided tens of thousands of dollars to partners around the country. Spanning a wide geographical range, grantees hail from heartland states such as Nebraska and Wisconsin, coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia, parts of the Southwest such as Bisbee, Arizona and Taos, New Mexico and noncontiguous states Alaska and Hawai'i.
Programs, both past and present, represent a dynamic cross-section of community groups, participants and audiences creating and sharing spaces for dialogue and reflection around issues and activities resonant with the local public and mission-aligned organizations. For example, returning grantee From Prison Cells to PhDs designs events aimed at people who are formerly or currently incarcerated while PBS Hawai'i focused on vulnerable LGBTQ+ communities with screenings and conversations. In North Dakota, Prairie Public connected with local indigenous tribal leaders around issues of racial and environmental justice. Our latest grantee, the Cineculture Club at Oklahoma State University, is an active POV Engage community partner that has hosted over 100 screenings of POV films and will use the ‘Our America’ resources to connect and educate their community through screenings, workshops and conversations around local, state and national issues to inspire community members towards civic action and reform.
This year’s cohort of stations and mission-driven organizations each receive up to $10,000 to support their community programming endeavors, exclusive digital access to POV films, and educational resources including film discussion guides that can support screenings, marketing, participant fees and workshops. ‘Our America’ is made possible with the generous support of the Open Society Foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts.
“The ‘Our America’ initiative challenges us to imagine what is possible when we come together to share our stories and have a dialogue about what matters in our own communities. This year’s cohort are developing programs that exemplify that belief in the power of storytelling; from indigenous and aging communities in Alaska, to island communities in Maui impacted by climate catastrophes, to justice-impacted individuals in Baltimore and around the country, our grantees are creating spaces for empathy, understanding, and change. The initiative is fueled by the deep human need to connect, and we are grateful to support communities working to make those connections happen,” said Robert Salyer, Manager of Outreach and Impact for POV Engage who has led the program since 2021.
“There is an incredible magic sparked by the longtime tradition of inviting people to gather together to watch a film. The independent film teams we partner with have been very thoughtful in producing stories that will not only enlighten audiences but films that will also cultivate the empathy, rage and action that communities all over this country are both sitting and grappling with," said Asad Muhammad, Vice President of Impact and Engagement Strategy.
"We at Alaska Public Media decided to apply for round two of the Our America grant because it provides an opportunity to build bridges between our station and communities facing unique challenges, as well as connecting the same communities to people and resources that may help them navigate those challenges. Our choice of the film Wisdom Gone Wild reflects those goals, and we are proud to share it with the community." from Peter Host, Alaska Public Media.
Our America 2023 Grantees
Akakū Maui will organize simultaneous in-person screenings of Wisdom Gone Wild across three islands. Their programs will include a panel-presentation highlighting experiences and perspectives on the issues of Maui Countyʻs aging community, the prevalence of dementia in the demographic, caregiving challenges, and the importance of documenting and preserving Hawaiiʻs multi-cultural kupuna (elder) stories.
Returning grantee from 2021, Alaska Public Media will work closely with organizations such asAlzheimer’s Resource of Alaska to host screenings and an episode of the radio program Line One: Your Health Connection around the film Wisdom Gone Wild, centering the experiences of older Alaskans, especially those facing dementia, and their caretakers.
Cineculture Club at Oklahoma State University, is an active POV Engage community partner. Their programs include three in-person screenings at Circle Cinema, an independent art house in Tulsa, and one virtual screening of the films A Story of Bones, Bulls and Saints, Liquor Store Dreams, and Brief Tender Light. Each presentation will feature a post-screening discussion around the issues presented in the films.
PBS Utah will bring together a collaborative of 10-12 journalism students from four Utah universities to create content based on a topic important to them and their fellow students. Content from each university will be showcased at a screening and panel discussion. During the screening, clips from While We Watched will highlight ethical journalism's importance. Additionally, led by journalism professor Marcie Young Cancio, PBS Utah will curate a Book Club in a Box utilizing While We Watched with a relevant novel. Cancio will provide discussion questions to help Utah book clubs discuss the importance of media literacy and unbiased journalism.
P2P is a longstanding POV Engage community partner and a 2022 ‘Our America’ grantee whose work inspires people with criminal convictions to excel beyond what society and life circumstances have set to be the norm. This year, P2P hopes to highlight the lived experiences of justice-impacted women through screenings of Wisdom Gone Wild and Murders That Matter accompanied by workshops hosted by field experts.
Based in the capital city of Columbia, PBS station South Carolina ETV will organize several screenings and workshops around Murders That Matter Liquor Store Dreams, After Sherman and unseen, using the films to address local issues. They will collaborate with subject matter experts such as disability-focused organizations to engage audiences on a deeper level, and partner with venues such as Columbia Museum of Art, an art museum in the heart of downtown Columbia.
PBS Station WTJX, based in the U.S. Virgin Islands, aims to present Brief Tender Light to college students at the University of the Virgin Islands and upper-level students in the public and private school systems. Their program will target educators, students and parents with the goal of bringing awareness to young students from abroad experiencing cultural differences and the internal pull between their cultures and the US mainland.
About
About POV
Produced by American Documentary, POV is the longest-running independent documentary showcase on American television. Since 1988, POV has presented films on PBS 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 is known for introducing generations of viewers to groundbreaking works like Tongues Untied, American Promise, Minding The Gap and Not Going Quietly, and innovative filmmakers including Jonathan Demme, Laura Poitras and Nanfu Wang. In 2018, POV Shorts launched as one of the first PBS series dedicated to bold and timely short-form documentaries. All POV programs are available for streaming concurrent with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. For more information about PBS Passport, visit the PBS Passport FAQ website.
POV goes “beyond the broadcast” to bring powerful nonfiction storytelling to viewers wherever they are. Free educational resources accompany every film and a community network of thousands of partners nationwide work with POV to spark dialogue around today’s most pressing issues. POV continues to explore the future of documentary through innovative productions with partners such as The New York Times and The National Film Board of Canada and on platforms including Snapchat and Instagram.
POV films and projects have won 47 Emmy® Awards, 27 George Foster Peabody Awards, 15 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards® and the first-ever George Polk Documentary Film Award. Learn more at pbs.org/pov and follow @povdocs on social media.
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 outlets. AmDoc is a catalyst for public culture, developing collaborative strategic engagement activities around socially relevant content on television, online and in community settings. These activities are designed to trigger action, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and community participation.
Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, the Open Society Foundations, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, Reva & David Logan Foundation, Park Foundation, and Perspective Fund. Additional funding comes from 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, the Chasing the Dream and Peril and Promise public media initiatives of The WNET Group, Chris and Nancy Plaut, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee 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.