American Documentary

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 ...

Dalya's Other Country tells the nuanced story of members of a family displaced by the Syrian conflict who are remaking themselves after the parents separate. Effervescent teen Dalya goes to Catholic high school and her mother, Rudayna, enrolls in college ...

In Kingdom of Shadows, Emmy®-nominated filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz takes an unflinching look at the hard choices and destructive consequences of the U.S.-Mexico drug war. Weaving together the stories of a U.S. drug enforcement agent on the ...

Since the age of 4, Angy Rivera has lived in the United States with a secret that threatens to upend her life: She is undocumented. Now 24 and facing an uncertain future, Rivera becomes an activist for undocumented youth with ...

The Academy Award®-nominated Cutie and the Boxer is a moving account of the chaotic and unconventional 40-year love affair and creative partnership between action painter Ushio Shinohara and his wife, Noriko, also an artist. Ushio, who punches canvases with ...

Through the Repellent Fence​ follows the creation of a two-mile long ephemeral art installation by three Native American artists: Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martínez, and Kade L. Twist. Collectively known as "Postcommodity," these artists explore Indigenous connections to place and ...

Filmmaker Robin Lung documents her 7-year journey to uncover the efforts of Li Ling-Ai, the visionary but uncredited producer of Kukan. Lung discovers a damaged film print of Kukan, and pieces together the untold tale of the two renegades behind ...

Filmmaker Ali Kazimi finds a rare cache of deteriorating 16mm home movies spanning from 1936 to 1951, and deftly crafts a story of history and memory in Random Acts of Legacy. The family archive that Kazimi discovers was the work ...

Who is Arthur Chu?​ follows 11-time Jeopardy! winner Arthur Chu, who won almost $300,000. By using an unconventional game strategy, the former insurance analyst amassed tens of thousands of fans and haters on Twitter. In an effort to put ...

Carnivals have a delightful place in the American imagination. But rising expenses and changes in U.S. labor patterns means this national pastime is nearly extinct. Farewell Ferris Wheel is an inside look at the struggles of an industry trying ...

Meet the young students in Mr. Zingg's integration class, who came to Switzerland by planes, trains and automobiles — and even by rubber boats. Separated from their families and in many cases traumatized by events in their home countries ...

War changes people, including 19-year-old Basset Saroot, who went from star goalkeeper for the Syrian national soccer team to peaceful advocate for Arab Spring reforms to armed insurgent. Return to Homs, which focuses on Basset and his ragtag group's ...

A World Not Ours is a passionate, bittersweet account of one family's multi-generational experience living as permanent refugees. Now a Danish resident, director Mahdi Fleifel grew up in the Ain el-Helweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon, established in 1948 ...

Special Flight is a dramatic account of the plight of undocumented foreigners at the Frambois detention center in Geneva, Switzerland, and of the wardens who struggle to reconcile humane values with the harsh realities of a strict deportation system. The ...

Short is sweet as POV presents brief documentary encounters — including an Academy Award nominee, a Student Academy Award winner and the return of StoryCorps: The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement — James Armstrong, whose ...

At a popular bakery cafe in Manhattan, patrons get served with a smile 24 hours a day. Behind the scenes, some of the undocumented immigrant workers earn far below the minimum wage. Filmed at the onset of the service economy ...

Things happen to you when you're a kid, says filmmaker Dinesh Sabu, "and you make sense of it after." Sabu is ruminating on his parents' deaths, which came when he was 6 years old. Two decades later, worried that ...

For filmmaker Matthew Hashiguchi, growing up half Japanese/half Italian in a white Irish-Catholic neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio, was a difficult experience. In Good Luck Soup, Hashiguchi sets out on a journey to discover how the rest of his multi-racial ...

Each September, the town of Chemult, Oregon is flooded with mushroom hunters. Many are immigrants from Laos, Cambodia and Thailand who entered the U.S. as refugees in the 1980s. Here, veterans Kouy Loch and Roger Higgins find more than ...

Class of ’27 presents distinct yet complementary personal stories from places too often ignored in America. Each of the three portraits demonstrates that children from distressed communities, despite their circumstances, are more likely to grow into productive and civically engaged ...