Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers

"Cutting Through Rocks" with Sara Khaki & Mohammadreza Eyni

Whether you are a fan of motorcycles or not, it’s hard to dispute that riding one down an open stretch of road delivers an intoxicating sense of freedom. As filmmakers Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni make clear in their extraordinary documentary “Cutting Through Rocks,” the motorcycle can also be a powerful — and threatening — symbol of female empowerment and independence.
 
Sara and Mohammadreza join Ken on the pod to discuss the remarkable woman at the center of their film, Sara Shahverdi, whose motorcycle rides through the countryside of rural northwest Iran have drawn the ire of the patriarchal defenders of traditional gender roles and the curiosity of a group of young women inspired by Sara’s free spirit and unwavering determination. Over the course of the film, we see Sara take the unprecedented step of running for the local council. To the amazement of all, Sara wins, becoming the first woman elected to council throughout the entire region. It’s an inspiring victory that comes with a huge sense of responsibility — and an all-too-expected backlash. What transpires is a tale that, through various twists and turns, ultimately leads back to that open road and to the boundless sense of possibility and joy that is just a motorcycle ride away.
 
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Hidden Gem:
Sara: ”The Salesman”
Mohammadreza: the documentary films of Krzysztof Kieslowski
 
The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

“Selena y Los Dinos” with Isabel Castro

Elvis. The Beatles. Madonna… Selena. Selena Quintanilla was a huge star on the cusp of becoming an international superstar when she was tragically killed in 1995 at just 23 years old. Filmmaker Isabel Castro (“Mija”) explores the life, music and legacy of this incredibly talented and beloved musician in her exceptional Netflix documentary portrait “Selena y Los Dinos.” As the film’s title implies, Selena’s story goes deeper than that of a singular star to include the central role played by her tightknit musical family who made up the band Los Dinos.
 
Isabel joins Ken on the pod to discuss the profound impact that Selena, as a symbol of bicultural identity and possibility, had on her own life growing up Mexican American in the U.S. When the Quintanilla family approached her to make a documentary about Selena, Isabel was immensely honored. But along with that privilege came the immense weight of doing justice to the “Queen of Tejano Music.” Taking her cue from the family’s treasure trove of archival material, Isabel reveals a young woman with extraordinary talent, a supportive but disciplined father determined to see his family achieve musical success, and a fan base that went from indifferent to rapturous in just a few short years. Watching Selena and the band find hard-earned success in Mexico and the U.S. and seeing her in the studio recording an all-English language crossover album, the tragedy of what could have been is all too apparent. But the enduring appeal of the music and the symbolism of this strong woman who became equally revered on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border lives on, now more than ever.
 
“Selena y Los Dinos” is released by and available for streaming on Netflix.
 
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Hidden Gem:
“The Bend in the River”
 
The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

“The Tale of Silyan” with Tamara Kotevska & Jean Dakar

The main protagonist of Tamara Kotevska’s (“Honeyland”) enchanting new documentary “The Tale of Silyan” is a lovable farmer named Nikola. But as compelling a screen presence as he is, Nikola can’t hold a candle to the film’s real stars, the gorgeous, majestic — and even more lovable — white storks who steal the show.
 
Producer/Director Tamara Kotevska and Cinematographer/Producer Jean Dakar join Ken on the pod to discuss these incredible birds, the legend of Silyan (a boy who was turned into a stork), and the North Macedonian rural community that the storks, Nikola, and his family call home. Having lived side-by-side in harmony for centuries, both storks and humans are now facing dire economic forces that make farming unsustainable and lead to landfills, rather than fertile fields, becoming the storks’ feeding grounds. As she did with her magical, multiple Oscar-nominated “Honeylands,” also set in her native Macedonia, Tamara manages to spin a tale of her own that seamlessly combines elements of narrative storytelling and observational documentary. Jean’s gorgeous and multifaceted cinematography elevates the film even further. “The Tale of Silyan” is a beautiful love story, too. It turns out that storks are just as lovable to Nikola as to the rest of us.
 
“The Tale of Silyan” is North Macedonia’s official submission for Best International Feature and is being released by National Geographic Documentary Films in select theaters.
 
Hidden Gems:
Tamara: “Midnight Family”
Jean: “Riders on the Storm”
 
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The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

"The Stringer" with Bao Nguyen

Who really took the photo widely known as “Napalm Girl”?  And does it really matter over a half-century later?
 
In his new Netflix documentary “The Stringer”, Bao Nguyen (“The Greatest Night in Pop”) follows a journalistic team lead by Anglo-American Gary Knight as they seek to show that the real photographer on that day in 1972 in Trang Bang was not the renowned and fêted Pulitzer Prize-winning Nick Ut, of the Saigon AP Bureau, but a “stringer”, Nguyen Thanh Nghe, paid $20 flat and subsequently denied all credit.  And Nguyen argues as well that it does matter not only to Nghe and his family, but also to: the Vietnamese people; the Vietnamese diaspora (who had long lionized Ut); to an America that has still not fully dealt with the war; and to the very nature of truth in an era when technology can both clarify and complicate provenance.
 
You can stream “The Stringer” on Netflix.
 
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The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

"Masaka Kids: A Rhythm Within" with David Vieira Lopez & Moses Bwayo

When Suuna Hassan and Madinah Babirah founded Masaka Kids Africana in the Masaka District of Uganda, they hoped to help a handful of orphaned children and other young people living on the streets. They had no way of knowing where their efforts would lead or that one day the whole world would be watching.
 
Directors David Vieira Lopez and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Moses Bwayo (“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”) join Ken on the pod to discuss this extraordinary organization, as well as the viral dance videos performed by the children of Masaka that caught the world’s attention during the pandemic. David, who was a volunteer at the organization at the time, and Moses, who is himself Ugandan, teamed up to tell the powerful story behind this Internet sensation. To their credit, the filmmakers are just as impressed with what Nabirah and Ian, and other children of Masaka, have to say, as with the dance steps that made these kids famous. In a place where HIV/AIDS has afflicted many thousands of people over the years and left many young people orphaned, Masaka Kids Africana is not just a symbol of hope but a vibrant community that is actively changing young people’s lives.
 
“Masaka Kids: A Rhythm Within” will be released on Netflix on December 9th.
 
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The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

“The New Yorker at 100” with Marshall Curry

In Marshall Curry’s (“Street Fight,” “A Night at the Garden”) new Netflix documentary, “The New Yorker at 100”, the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, calls its very existence “a miracle”: in a typical issue you might find  a long profile of a museum, and then a report from Southern Lebanon, all interspersed with gag cartoons
 
Curry’s documentary reflects the variegated nature of its subject, revealing the process by which the magazine’s 100th anniversary edition is created while tracking the history of the magazine as it morphed from: a chiefly humor offering putatively aimed at the city’s upper crust; then embracing ground-breaking journalism first led by Jon Hersey, and later Rachel Carson and Truman Capote; to the celebrity-laden reign of Tina Brown; to Remnick’s politically-imbued editorial approach.  And throughout, as he notes both continuity and change, Curry pays homage to the people who make it all happen at such an elevated level:  the editors and writers, sure, but also the fact-checkers, cartoonists, designers, and even the employee who maintains the building and hides away the priceless archival material.
 
You can watch “The New Yorker at 100” on Netflix.
 
Hidden Gems:
“Spellbound”
“How to Die in Oregon”
 
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The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

"Holding Liat" with Brandon and Lance Kramer

When Liat Atzili and her husband Aviv were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas on October 7th, 2023, their families were not only devastated by the news but also at a loss of what to do next.  In Brandon and Lance Kramer’s (The First Step”) brilliant, nuanced and stirring documentary “Holding Liat,” each member of the family must decide what he or she can do to help bring Liat and Aviv home not knowing what impact their actions or words will have. At times, passionate and painful disagreements break out within the family.
 
The Kramer brothers — director Brandon and producer Lance — return to the pod to discuss the harrowing journey of the Atzili/Beinin family and the filmmakers’ own connection to the story. With the fates of Liat and Aviv unknown, father Yehuda, son Netta and sister Tal embark on a byzantine quest through the corridors of power in Washington, DC to tell their story and to persuade lawmakers to do something. As the family’s frustration builds, tensions boil over. After weeks of excruciating uncertainty, suddenly, news brings relief and joy to the family but also tragedy. Keeping us in its tight emotional grip throughout, “Holding Liat,” ultimately, is as much about letting go as it is about holding on.
 
“Holding Liat” will screen at Film Forum in New York City in January, followed by a planned multi-city U.S. domestic release.
 
Hidden Gems:
Brandon: “Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment”
Lance: “Nobody’s Business”
 
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The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

"My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 — Last Air in Moscow" with Julia Loktev & Ksenia Mironova

Sometimes, timing is everything. If Julia Loktev’s 5 hour and 24-minute documentary masterpiece “My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 — Last Air in Moscow” can be boiled down to its essence, it may be that, often in life, there is a “before” and an “after,” and nothing can possibly prepare you for what comes after. In this case, the event that changes everything for the courageous generation of Russian journalists that came of age under Vladimir Putin’s reign is the Russian leader’s cataclysmic invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
 
Julia and journalist / film participant Ksenia Mironova join Ken on “Top Docs” to discuss the vibrant world of independent journalism that existed in Russia in the period prior to the invasion, and the subsequent crackdown that ended it all. Filming Ksenia and a cohort of women journalists in the months leading up the invasion with her iPhone, Julia captures an intimate, inspiring world of hope, youthful ambition and a deep commitment to reporting the truth in a country where government propaganda is one of Putin’s most powerful weapons of control. Bearing witness, first as the government brands news outlets, NGOs and individual journalists as foreign agents, and then through instances of arrest and imprisonment (including Ksenia’s fiancé), Julia finds herself filming as the clock strikes midnight on any semblance of freedom of the press in Russia. By the end of Part 1, all the film’s participants are forced to flee the country. Timing may be everything, but the story never ends. Part 2 on “The Exiles” is already underway.
 
Hidden Gems:
Julia: “Four Daughters”, “July Rain” by
Ksenia: “Holocaust: Is That Wallpaper Paste?”
 
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98th Academy Awards Shortlist Rundown with Anne Thompson

Welcome once again to our Anne-ual Top Docs Holiday Special featuring the one-and-only Anne Thompson, Editor-at-Large at IndieWire! Anne joins Mike and Ken to tackle this year’s Best Feature Documentary Oscar Shortlist, released on December 16th. One day following the release of the list, Anne is already fired up and ready to go. How competitive is this year’s race? Who are the Favorites, Runners Up and Dark Horses? Which film will win it all? Park yourself in front of a roaring fire and pop in those earbuds. It’s Oscar time!
 
IndieWire Editor-at-Large Anne Thompson has been a contributor to the New York Times, Washington Post, The Observer, and Wired. She has served as film columnist at Variety, and deputy editor of Variety.com, where her daily blog, Thompson on Hollywood, launched in March 2007. 
 
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The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

"Cover-Up" with Mark Obenhaus

It took 20 years of asking by an Oscar-winning filmmaker, but famed investigative reporter Seymour Hersh finally said, “Yes.” The result is "Cover-Up", a revelatory new documentary portrait of Hersh’s fascinating life and career by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Laura Poitras (“Citizenfour”) and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Mark Obenhaus (“Steep”).
 
Joining Ken on the pod, Mark (who jointly directed the film with Laura) discusses the origins of his professional relationship with Hersh and why the stars finally aligned for Hersh to agree to the project. With a career going back to the 1960’s, Hersh virtually invented the idea of the modern investigative reporter. He sniffed out the facts of the horrific My Lai massacre by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam and exposed the top brass’ scandalous cover-up. Following My Lai, Hersh went on to expose cover-ups in Watergate that became front page news in the “New York Times.” Years later, during the Iraq War, Hersh’s reporting would again expose high-level cover-ups, revealing the graphic details of torture committed by the CIA and the U.S. Army at Abu Ghraib prison. “Cover-Up” also addresses Hersh’s shortcomings as well. Time and again, Hersh’s work and sources have exposed abuses of power at the highest level of the American government. It turns out that the full story was well worth waiting for.
 
Hidden Gem:
“Seeds”
 
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The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.