Doc Talk: A Deadline and Nō Studios Podcast

Lauren Greenfield, director of the FX documentary series Social Studies, joins the show to discuss what she discovered in her deep dive into the way high schoolers' lives are ruled by immersion into TikTok, Instagram, Discord and other social media platforms. Slut-shaming, bullying, self-marketing — it's all part of what some might consider a toxic stew. Social Studies is the winner of the breakthrough Nonfiction Series from the Gotham TV Awards and a leading Emmy contender. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Barbara Walters joined ABC news in 1976, she became the highest paid journalist in the U.S. – pulling in $1 million a year. That, not surprisingly, triggered a lot of resentment among her peers, none more so than her evening news co-anchor Harry Reasoner. Overcoming envy and sexism and balancing a career and motherhood, Walters reached the pinnacle of her profession and stayed there, a story explored in the new documentary Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything. The film directed by Jackie Jesko premieres Thursday evening at Tribeca Festival in New York. The feature, which debuts on Hulu later this month, is the latest from Imagine Documentaries, the enormously successful nonfiction division of the production company founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. On the latest edition of Deadline's Doc Talk podcast, we explore the company's upcoming docs and impressive slate of Emmy contenders with Imagine Entertainment President Justin Wilkes and Imagine Documentaries President Sara Bernstein. Taking their cue from the Barbara Walters documentary subtitle – Tell Me Everything – Wilkes and Bernstein tell us everything: why Imagine got into documentaries, how the Barbara Walters project came about, how they work with estates and other stakeholders on celebrity biographies without surrendering editorial independence, and what they see as the future of branded content in the nonfiction and fiction spaces. Imagine Documentaries won five Emmys last year for its film Jim Henson Idea Man, directed by Ron Howard. While the Television Academy has proven receptive to honoring documentaries about well-known people, the documentary branch of the Motion Picture Academy has demonstrated reluctance to do likewise. Wilkes shares his unvarnished thoughts about how the Academy could change voting rules to give celebrity-oriented documentaries a fair shake. The Imagine execs also respond to a recent article in the Hollywood trade papers asserting that music and other celebrity films are “killing the documentary.” They don't see it that way. That's on the latest edition of the Doc Talk podcast, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline's documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley's Nō Studios. Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk heads to the Croisette to speak with filmmakers and film participants who debuted their documentaries at Cannes: Raoul Peck on George Orwell; Eugene Jarecki on Julian Assange; U2's Bono on his new Apple TV+ film; Mariska Hargitay on her film about her late mother, Jayne Mansfield, and the makers of Slauson Rec, a documentary about Shia LaBeouf's stormy tenure leading a free theater company in L.A. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Another glamorous Cannes Film Festival has ended, after an exciting fortnight on the Côte d'Azur that drew the likes of Tom Cruise, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Pattinson, Denzel Washington, Paul Mescal, Kristen Stewart, and many others. Stars of documentaries also turned up: Shia LaBeouf, whose exploits as founder of a free theater company in L.A. are chronicled in Slauson Rec, and Julian Assange, focus of the documentary The Six Billion Dollar Man. The latter film, directed by Eugene Jarecki, won a Special Jury Prize marking the 10th anniversary of the L'Oeil d'or award, which goes to the top documentary at Cannes. Imago, directed by Chechen filmmaker Déni Oumar Pitsaev, took the 2025 L'Oeil d'or prize. For the first time, Deadline's Doc Talk podcast traveled to Cannes to record interviews and to moderate a panel at the American Pavilion. Today's episode of the show is built around our AmPav discussion on the state of the documentary industry which featured panelists Vanessa Hope (director of Invisible Nation); Joe Tufano, VP of Distribution at Submarine Entertainment, and Catherine Quantschnigg, Producer, Sales at Noah Media Group. Tufano explains how documentary filmmakers are increasingly moving to a territory-by-territory approach to sell their features in the absence of acquisitions for worldwide distribution. Hope tells us why she considered going the self-distribution route in the U.S. for her award-winning film that explores Taiwan as it contends with almost daily threats from mainland China. And Quantschnigg reveals how the distribution landscape has changed dramatically in only a few years since Netflix acquired Noah Media Group's acclaimed film 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible. That's on the latest edition of the Doc Talk podcast, hosted by Oscar winner John Ridley (12 Years a Slave, Shirley) and Matt Carey, Deadline's documentary editor. The pod is a production of Deadline and Ridley's Nō Studios. Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, iHeart and Apple. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk travels to Millennium Docs Against Gravity in Poland, where we speak with artistic director Karol Piekarczyk about what has become one of the biggest and most prestigious all-documentary festivals in the world. We also visit with Northern Irish filmmaker Mark Cousins, who conducted a special "anti-masterclass" at MDAG. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Stanley Tucci joins us to discuss his new National Geographic documentary series Tucci in Italy, which finds the acclaimed actor exploring the country's immensely rich culinary traditions, from trippa to lardo, hay soup and barbecued mutton.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oscar-winning director Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson explores the brilliance of Sly Stone in Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius), his Emmy-contending documentary feature. The Summer of Soul filmmaker joins us to talk about Sly's incredible contributions to music, and the mystery behind the one-time superstar's career and personal implosion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

MSNBC is airing the six-part documentary series David Frost Vs, built around some of the most extraordinary interviews conducted over a 50-year period by David Frost, the legendary British journalist and entertainer. We speak with executive producer Wilfred Frost, one of David's sons, about his dad's tête-à-têtes with Richard Nixon, Elton John, Muhammad Ali, John Lennon, Yoko Ono and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Filmmaker Miranda Yousef joins us to discuss her documentary Art for Everybody, which enjoys a 100 percent critics approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It's the story of self-styled "Painter of Light" Thomas Kincade, who made a mint selling kitschy scenes of cozy cottages. Kinkade marketed himself as a devout Christian, but as the film reveals, beneath all that light lurked a dark side. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney joins us to discuss his new HBO documentary double feature The Dark Money Game, an investigation in two films of the pernicious influence of untraceable money in our politics. The first film, Ohio Confidential, uncovers a massive dark money scandal in the Buckeye State, while the second film, Wealth of the Wicked, digs up the roots of dark money going back to the 1970s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Filmmakers Stanley Nelson and Nicole London explore We Want the Funk!, a joyous documentary about a genre of music that compels people to dance from beat one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk heads to CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, where we speak with Oscar-winning Ukrainian filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, winner of the festival's F:ACT Award for his new documentary 2000 Meters to Andriivka. We also visit with CPH:DOX artistic director Niklas Engstrøm, who talks about Europe's alarm over Pres. Trump "trying to change the world order." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Filmmakers Ben Braun and Chiaki Yanagimoto discuss their documentary AUM: The Cult at the End of the World, an exploration of the Japanese religious movement and doomsday cult responsible for a fatal terror attack on the Toyko subway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We speak with Yorgos Krassakopoulos, head of program for the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece, about the 27th edition of the highly respected cinematic event. And we talk with one of the filmmakers invited to share his film at TiDF — Mark Andrew Altschul, director of All American, a documentary about high school girl wrestlers. Plus, Doc Talk hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey discuss what's going on in Miami Beach, FL, where the mayor is threatening to yank the lease of a cinema showing the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Director Ezra Edelman is speaking out about Netflix's decision to abandon his Prince documentary series in favor of a version more to the liking of the musician's estate. We discuss Edelman's critique of the current state of celebrity documentaries, plus we talk with the makers of WTO/99, the new documentary about the giant protests against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey react to the Oscars, which saw No Other Land win Best Documentary Feature and The Only Girl in the Orchestra win Best Documentary Short. And we talk with Chloé Trayner, artistic director of the just wrapped 22nd edition of True/False. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Slamdance relocates from its longtime home in Park City, Utah to Los Angeles, we talk with president and co-founder Peter Baxter about the festival's documentary lineup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We speak with the directors of the Oscar-nominated documentary feature Porcelain War, Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev. Their film, telling a story of art and war in Ukraine, just won the DGA Award, a year after debuting at Sundance where it claimed the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Documentary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I Am Ready, Warden director Smriti Mundhra and The Only Girl in the Orchestra director Molly O'Brien join us to talk about their Oscar-nominated short documentaries. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We talk with two filmmakers who just premiered feature documentaries at Sundance — Cristina Costantini, director of Sally, about late astronaut Sally Ride, and Violet Du Feng, director of The Dating Game, an examination of how Chinese men, who vastly outnumber women, try to find mates in the China of today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk unpacks the nominees for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards. And co-host John Ridley speaks with director Geeta Gandbhir and executive producer Soledad O'Brien about the stunning documentary The Perfect Neighbor, which just premiered at Sundance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Documentary programmers Basil Tsiokos and Sudeep Sharma join us to discuss the nonfiction lineup for the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The slate includes new work from Oscar winners Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, Mstyslav Chernov, and Davis Guggenheim, plus films on book banning, the first openly trans attorney to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court, the late astronaut Sally Ride, and a documentary series on late "Pee-wee Herman" actor Paul Reubens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The documentary community is reckoning with enormous loss from the Los Angeles wildfires, which has directly impacted many filmmakers. We are joined by Tracy Droz Tragos, who lost her home in the Pacific Palisades fire; Smriti Mundhra, who evacuated her home in Malibu Canyon; L.A. resident Lucy Walker who documented California wildfires in Bring Your Own Brigade, and L.A.-based writer and editor Tom White, former longtime chief of Documentary magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We talk with Orwa Nyrabia, IDFA's artistic director, and visit with filmmakers premiering new work at the world's biggest documentary festival. Plus, filmmakers Carla Gutiérrez and Irene Taylor share their Amsterdam experience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk co-hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey react to the announcement of the shortlists in the documentary categories for the 97th Academy Awards. What were the snubs and major surprises? We unpack the 15 features and 15 shorts remaining in contention for the Oscar.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We report live from the 40th IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles, interviewing winners as they come off stage, including Shiori Ito (Black Box Diaries), the Queendom team, Career Achievement Award winner Dawn Porter, and Curated Series winner Lois Vossen. And we speak with the IDA's executive director, Dominic Asmall Willsdon, about the state of the documentary field. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No Other Land, set in the occupied West Bank, has emerged as a frontrunner for the Oscars, winning awards around the world including a slew in the past week alone. We speak with Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra, half of the Israeli Palestinian collective of filmmakers behind the documentary. Their film, which has attracted praise and controversy, depicts life for Palestinian villagers who face threats of expulsion from their land by the Israel Defense Forces. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Japanese journalist Shiori Itō investigates her own sexual assault in the Oscar-contending documentary Black Box Diaries. She joins Doc Talk to discuss how her case changed rape laws in Japan and how she made the transition from objective journalist to first-person storyteller. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Filmmaker Jeff Zimbalist joins us to discuss his Oscar-contending Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story. This is the story of a young Russian couple who have made a career of illegally climbing to the top of extraordinary tall structures, including the 118-story Merdeka in Malaysia, and then photographing themselves doing balletic poses in the sky. Doc Talk co-host John Ridley calls it the scariest documentary he's ever seen.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Renowned documentary filmmaker R.J. Cutler discusses his two Oscar-contending documentaries – Elton John: Never Too Late, and Martha, the latter film about businesswoman, entrepreneur and lifestyle doyenne Martha Stewart. Cutler responds to Stewart's, at times, harsh criticism of his film. She's campaigning for Netflix to create a "second version" of the documentary that's more to her liking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We welcome Johan Grimonprez, director of the award-winning documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat. The Belgian filmmaker explains how he synched complex geopolitical history from the late 1950s and early '60s to the music of jazz giants like Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie. His dizzying achievement exposes the plot by the U.S., the UN secretary general, and Belgium to assassinate charismatic Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba, all while the band played on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For our second episode recorded live at SFFILM's Doc Stories festival, we speak with director Kevin Macdonald about his documentary One to One: John & Yoko, examining a remarkable year-plus in the lives of the famous couple after they moved to New York. And we climb into the time machine to explore 1970s bizarro radicalism with director Robinson Devor and producer Jason Reid of Suburban Fury, a documentary about would-be presidential assassin Sara Jane Moore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk heads to San Francisco for the 10th anniversary of SFFILM's Doc Stories festival. We speak with SFFILM Executive Director Anne Lai and Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks, as well as the filmmakers behind a stunning film in the program, Arepas en Bici.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The hosts of Doc Talk and the ElectionLine podcast get together for an unprecedented summit. On the agenda — debating the best political documentary ever, and why conservatives can't seem to make a decent documentary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Director Matt Tyrnauer and Democratic political strategist James Carville join us to talk about the entertaining and timely documentary Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're in the field at the Toronto International Film Festival, interviewing makers of some of the biggest documentaries to play at TIFF, including The Last Republican, The Last of the Sea Women, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, and music-themed docs on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Paul Anka, and Pharrell Williams. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk goes inside the 20th Camden International Film Festival in Maine, speaking with Artistic Director Sean Flynn and filmmakers Petra Costa ('Apocalypse in the Tropics') and Elizabeth Lo ('Mistress Dispeller'). Camden has emerged as one of the most important all-documentary festivals in the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Seeking Mavis Beacon, director Jazmin Jones and her filmic collaborator Olivia McKayla Ross try to solve a cyber mystery: What became of the elegant Black woman featured on the cover of a groundbreaking learn-to-type software program? The young sleuths discuss the complex cultural truths exposed by their quixotic quest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thom Powers, chief documentary programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival, joins the show to talk about the nonfiction lineup of this year's festival. How do you cut more than 900 submissions down to a final list of 21? Powers explains, and he shares his thoughts on the most buzzworthy titles soon to bow in Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk travels to Europe to speak with the creative director of Sheffield DocFest, the U.K.'s top all-documentary film festival, and the leaders of Sunny Side of the Doc, the biggest documentary marketplace that unfolds in La Rochelle, France. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey react to the Emmy nominations in the documentary categories, and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lucy Walker discusses her towering new film Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are the top Oscar-contending documentaries so far this year? Co-hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey look at the state of the race seven months into 2024. Films from Netflix, MTV Documentary Films, National Geographic, and Warner Bros. Discovery are in the mix, along with several docs that, so far, lack U.S. distribution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Extraordinary artist Chiura Obata is the focus of the new documentary Obata's Yosemite, which explores his depiction of the national park through landscape paintings. Director Adam Prieto joins Doc Talk along with Kimi Hill, Obata's granddaughter. Hill tells us how Obata survived internment in a U.S. concentration camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, founding an art school for fellow detainees. As a bonus, we also speak with Milwaukee Film's artistic director, Cara Ogburn, about the challenges and opportunities facing film festivals in the U.S., including the Milwaukee Film Festival. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney discusses his Emmy-contending two-part documentary In Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon. And he talks about his upcoming film on Elon Musk, including the nasty name Musk called him after the business tycoon heard about the project.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Director Prentice Penny breaks down his Hulu documentary series Black Twitter, a three-part examination of how Black users of Twitter transformed the platform into a forum for humor, community, and a rallying point for social justice. And he ponders the fate of the social media site under chaotic ownership of Elon Musk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Schitt's Creek star and beloved comedic actor Eugene Levy stops by Doc Talk to discuss his Emmy-contending nonfiction series The Reluctant Traveler, which finds him circumnavigating the globe despite being an admittedly adventure-averse individual. Executive producer-director David Brindley joins the conversation, revealing what travel activities Levy could not be convinced to do, and a few he surprisingly agreed to, including performing an examination of an elephant – and not from the front end. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard discusses his new Disney+ documentary Jim Henson Idea Man, about the late Muppets creator and filmmaker's extraordinary life and career. And Howard shares his thoughts about working with John Candy, subject of an upcoming documentary, and he pays tribute to the man who got him his start in directing -- Roger Corman.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sundance, Hot Docs and other film festivals in North America are facing significant challenges post-pandemic. Sundance is even considering a move out of its long-time home in Park City, Utah. Joining us to talk about what's going on with festivals are Ken Jacobson, executive director of the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas, and Anne Lai, executive director of SFFilm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest is Oscar-nominated filmmaker Yance Ford, director of Power. The documentary, premiering on Netflix this week, tackles policing in America – the origins of the institution and how police today preserve the existing order of society. Ford argues police power in this country is vast and largely unregulated. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk goes live from the Milwaukee Film Festival with Debra McClutchy, archival producer of Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted and Oscar-nominated co-director of The Martha Mitchell Effect. And we discuss redemption and the power of music with JJ'88, protagonist of Songs From the Hole, and producer Richie Reseda. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk goes live from the Milwaukee Film Festival with Sav Rodgers, director of Chasing Chasing Amy, and Mary Louise Schumacher, director of Out of the Picture. Schumacher's film trains a sharp eye on the state of art criticism, while Rodgers explores how Kevin Smith's 1997 film Chasing Amy saved his life but continues to stir controversy today.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices