Motherland | American Documentary

Motherland

POV Season 30

Feature Film
2017
90 Mins

Motherland is an absorbingly intimate, vérité look at the busiest maternity hospital on the planet, in one of the world's most populous countries: the Philippines. Women share their stories with other mothers, their families, doctors and social workers. In a hospital that is literally bursting with life, we witness the miracle and wonder of the human condition. Winner, 2017 Sundance World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Commanding Vision.

Survivors

Feature Film
2018

Clip

Through the eyes of Sierra Leonean filmmaker Arthur Pratt, Survivors presents an intimate portrait of his country during the Ebola outbreak, exposing the complexity of the epidemic and the sociopolitical turmoil that lies in its wake. During one of the ...

Voices of the Sea

Feature Film
2018

Interview

Revealing stark realities for the poorest of rural Cubans with unique access and empathy, this is the story of a 30-something mother of four longing for a better life. The tension between wife and aging husband—one desperate to leave ...

Still Tomorrow

Feature Film
2018

Interview

A village woman with no high school diploma becomes China's most famous poet, and her book of poetry the best-selling such volume in China in the past 20 years. Still Tomorrow follows Yu Xiuhua, a 39-year-old woman living with cerebral ...

Lindy Lou, Juror Number 2

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

For 20 years, Lindy has lived with an unbearable feeling of guilt. Committed to fulfilling her civic duty, Lindy sat with 11 other people on a jury that handed down the death penalty to a Mississippi man convicted of a ...

Singing With Angry Bird

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Jae-Chang Kim runs a children's choir in Pune, India. Although his quick temper earned him the nickname "Angry Bird," he has made significant changes in the lives of the choir children. But skeptical of the practical value of music ...

StoryCorps Shorts: The Temple of Knowledge

Short Film
2018

Short Film

Ronald Clark's father was a custodian of a branch of the New York Public Library at a time when caretakers, along with their families, lived in the buildings. With his daughter, Jamilah, Ronald remembers literally growing up in a library ...

StoryCorps Shorts: Driven

Short Film
2016

Short Film

Wendell Scott was the first African American inducted in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. His son, Frank, remembers what it took for his father to cross the finish line at racetracks throughout the South in the '60s and '70s.

From Damascus to Chicago

Short Film
2017

Short Film

In the documentary short From Damascus to Chicago, two young Syrian siblings recently resettled in Chicago enroll in a dance class, while the film follows their family's experiences in navigating a new city and country.

4.1 Miles

Short Film
2017

Short Film

In the Oscar®-nominated short film 4.1 Miles, Daphne Matziaraki follows a day in the life of Kyriakos Papadopoulos, a captain in the Greek coast guard who is caught in the middle of the refugee crisis in which Europe ...

StoryCorps Shorts: School's Out

Short Film
2016

Short Film

Following the federal mandate to integrate schools in the 1950's, Reverend James Seawood recalls how African Americans were forced out of Sheridan, Arkansas, the fate of his beloved school, and the human cost of "urban renewal."

Stay Close

Short Film
2019

Short Film

Stay Close blends home videos and animation in an expressionistic montage to tell the underdog story of Keeth Smart, an African American fencer from Brooklyn who overcomes a gauntlet of hardships on his road to the Olympics.

Crisanto Street

Short Film
2020

Short Film

In the shadow of Silicon Valley, a hidden community thrives despite difficult circumstances. For one resident, eight-year-old Geovany Cesario, impending change is bittersweet.

Reluctantly Queer

Short Film
2020

Short Film

A young gay man from Ghana struggles to reconcile his sexuality and love for his mother through a series of letters in this deceptively simple yet powerful piece.

Muxes

Short Film
2020

Short Film

In the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, Mexico, the world is not divided simply into men and women. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes”—men who consider themselves women ...

All Inclusive

Short Film
2020

Short Film

Under the spell of mass entertainment on the high seas.

Gentlemen of Vision

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Gentlemen of Vision follows a year in the life of coach, counselor and founder Marlon Wharton, and his 2015-2016 class of young Black males as he strives to rewrite future prospects for his students. While striving for excellence in school ...

For Ahkeem

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Expelled from high school, Daje Shelton is only 17 years old when she is sentenced by a judge – not to prison, but to an alternative school, the Innovative Concept Academy. It offers Daje one last chance to earn a high ...

The Invisible Patients

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Through the story of Jessica Macleod, Ph.D., a dedicated nurse practitioner in Evansville, Indiana, and her four homebound and marginalized patients, The Invisible Patients sheds light on some of the most urgent healthcare issues facing our nation today: from ...

MILWAUKEE 53206

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

MILWAUKEE 53206 introduces viewers to a community with the highest rate of incarcerated African American men in the U.S. The unvarnished film unfolds through the stories of postal code 53206 residents directly impacted by imprisonment: Beverly Walker and her ...

Beyond the Wall

Feature Film
2018

Trailer

Beyond the Wall revolves around one central figure, a former prisoner named Louie Diaz, as he works to guide five formerly incarcerated men safely through the minefield of life outside of jail. Too often, prisoner reentry becomes a setup for ...

89 Steps

Interactive
2014

In the late 1950s, Marta's mother found refuge for her family in Williamsburg after leaving her village in Puerto Rico and enduring homelessness and hunger elsewhere in New York. When Marta became a single mother, she fought hard to stay ...

Empire

Interactive
2014

The Dutch East and West India Companies once controlled vast trading networks that stretched from the Cape of Good Hope to the Indonesian archipelago, and from New York to South America's Wild Coast. Although they came in pursuit of short-term ...

Fukushima

Interactive
2014

A chronicle the ongoing recovery of the Tohoku region of Japan after the devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in 2011.Set three years after the calamitous meltdown, Fukushima: The Eternal Season, creates an impassioned portrait of a resident as ...

Immigrant Nation

Interactive
2014

Immigrant Nation is an interactive storytelling project designed to document the United States' diverse immigrant narratives and experiences and share them with the world. Through short documentary films, live events and an online Story Hub, the project aspires to shift ...

Film Credits

Ramona S. Diaz

Press Room

POV’s While We Watched Receives a Peabody Awards Nomination America ReFramed Acquires the Compelling Documentary A Woman on the Outside to Open WORLD’s Newest Content Theme “Liberated Lives” Beginning March 28, 2024 POV Acquires Who I am Not, a Thoughtful Documentary About What it Means to be Intersex in a Binary World, Will Debut as Part of POV’s 37th Season Launching Summer 2024

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