Description
What’s it like for independent doc filmmakers, accustomed to making all their own decisions, to work with a top-notch doc series like PBS’s Frontline, with its strict journalistic guidelines? That’s the main topic I discuss with award-winning doc filmmakers Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein, whose terrific 2022 film American Reckoning began as an indie project but eventually turned into a Frontline project.
Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein are well-known both separately as a team, Yoruba for films including 2023’s The Cost of Inheritance, which premiered at DOC NYC, Brad for films including 2022’s Emmy Award-winning When Claude Got Shot. More about Yoruba here, and Brad here.
Films mentioned in this episode:
American Reckoning (2022), Dir. Yoruba Richen and Brad Lichtenstein
The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show (2020), Dir. Yoruba Richen
When Claude Got Shot (2021), Dir. Brad Lichtenstein
The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (2022), Dir. Yoruba Richen and Johanna Hamilton
Black Natchez (1967), Dir. Ed Pincus and David Neuman
Other mentions:
St. Clair Bourne
Bill Moyers
The Un(re)solved Project
Dawn Porter
Frontline
Hillary Bachelder
Raney Aronson-Rath
The Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act
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Special thanks for helping make this series happen: Sara Archambault, Florence Barrau-Adams, Jon Berman, Ben Cuomo (music), Jax Deluca, Pallavi Deshpande, Nancy Gibbs, Kathleen Hughes, Caroline Kracunas, Laura Manley, Alexis Pancrazi, Liz Schwartz, Jeff Seelbach, Lindsay Underwood (logo/graphics)
This episode was supported by a fellowship at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
June Cross is a documentary filmmaker who has Emmy, Peabody, and DuPont-Columbia Journalism awards under her belt. She also founded and directs the doc program at the Columbia University Journalism School. So you could say she's helped bring not only documentary films into the world but also a...
Published 12/13/23
Caty Borum heads the Center for Media and Social Impact at the American University School of Communication, and she's the author of Story Movements: How Documentaries Empower People and Inspire Social Change. She studies “creative, independent investigative documentary,” her term for docs that...
Published 12/13/23