The Thousand Roads Podcast Tom Casciato

Julie Cohen and Betsy West are best known as a team for their Oscar-nominated documentary RBG about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They’re also both former network news journalists. We talk about the differences and similarities between those two worlds (hint: one of them sounds more fun), the films that helped shape their sensibilities, and their films RBG, Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down, about the former Congresswoman’s recovery from an assassination attempt, and My Name Is Pauli Murray, about the non-binary lawyer who played a key role in the civil rights movement.

Julie Cohen’s 2023 film, Every Body, premiered at Tribeca and was released theatrically by Focus Features. Called “a master class in how a documentary should be done” by The Boston Globe, it tells of three courageous intersex people who've overcome shame and secrecy to become their true selves.

Betsy West is a filmmaker, journalist, and professor emerita at the Columbia Journalism School. A 21-time Emmy Award winner, she served as executive producer of the ABC News documentary series Turning Point and as VP of News at CBS, where she oversaw 60 Minutes and 48 Hours.

More about Julie & Betsy here.

Films mentioned in this episode:
RBG (2018), Dir. Julie Cohen and Betsy West
Hoop Dreams (1994), Dir. Steve James 
Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down (2022), Dir. Julie Cohen and Betsy West
Flee (2021), Dir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen
Haulout (2022), Dir. Maxim Arbugaev and Evgenia Arbugaeva
The Endless Summer (1966), Dir. Bruce Brown
The World At War series (1973-74), Dir. David Elstein
Roger And Me (1989), Dir. Michael Moore
Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Dir. Wim Wenders
My Name is Pauli Murray (2021), Dir. Julie Cohen and Betsy West

Other Mentions:
Senator Mark Kelly 
Turning Point (ABC News)
Cinque Northern


Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod

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.

Award-winning documentarian Dawn Porter talks about bringing journalistic principles and standards to documentary filmmaking and treating documentary subjects as collaborators and partners rather than “subjects.” We also discuss the need to keep having the difficult conversations needed to keep up with the changing documentary landscape. We also talk about how she got into the business by way of another profession, and discuss one of my favorites of her films, Gideon's Army, which premiered at Sundance and was nominated for both the Independent Spirit Award for Best Doc and an Emmy.
Dawn’s 2023 film, The Lady Bird Diaries was called “mesmerizing” and “elegant” by The Guardian. She is also known for the HBO film Trapped, about the last abortion providers in Mississippi, as well as films about Civil Rights icon John Lewis and the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. More about Dawn here.

Films mentioned in this episode:
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (2022), Dir. Laura Poitras
Hoop Dreams (1994), Dir. Steve James 
The Territory (2022), Dir. Alex Pritz
Gideon’s Army (2013), Dir. Dawn Porter
The Interrupters (2011), Dir. Steve James
Jesus Camp (2006), Dir. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Five Broken Cameras (2011), Dir. Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi

Other Mentions:
Nan Goldin


Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod

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.

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


Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod

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.

I think it’s safe to say Jennifer Tieixiera and Camilla Hall have created a documentary unlike any other. It's called Subject, and it profiles people whose stories have appeared in some of the most acclaimed documentaries of the last three decades or so, including Hoop Dreams, The Square, The Wolfpack, and The Staircase. But what makes Subject different is that it focuses on what happened to these folks after their participation in documentaries made them famous. It’s a film that asks filmmakers to take a hard look at their own processes and motives, and we discuss not only filmmaking practices and ethics, but also the state of the doc world both from a creative and business perspective.

More about Jennifer and Camilla here.

Films mentioned in this episode:
Subject (2023), Dir. Jennifer Tiexiera & Camilla Hall
The Staircase series (2022), Dir. Leigh Janiak, Antonio Campos
Hoop Dreams (1994), Dir. Steve James 
Capturing The Friedmans (2003), Dir. Andrew Jarecki
The Square (2013), Jehane Noujaim
Winter On Fire: Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom (2015), Evgeny Afineevsky

Other Mentions: 
Gordon Quinn
Pat Aufderheide
Margie Ratliff
Kirsten Johnson
Michèle Stephenson
Joe Brewster
Assia Boundaoui 
Sam Pollard
Bruce Shapiro
Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma
Documentary Accountability Working Group
Sonya Childress
Dr. Kameelah Mu’Min Rashad aka Oseguera 
Ahmed Hassan
Rita Baghdadi


Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod

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.

Robert Greene is a professor at the University of Missouri's Journalism School, where he runs the Murray Center for Documentary Journalism. But he's better known as a filmmaker whose documentaries are anything but “traditional” journalism. These include two that we talk about in this podcast, Procession, about the pedophilia scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, which was shortlisted for the documentary Oscar in 2021, and the award-winning Bisbee ‘17, about a mass deportation of immigrants that took place in the American Southwest about a century ago. We also discuss his influences, his filmmaking philosophy, and some of his favorite documentaries.
Robert’s other films include Kate Plays Christine and Actress. More about Robert here.

Films mentioned in this episode:
Procession (2020), Dir. Robert Greene
Spotlight (2015), Dir. Tom McCarthy
Bisbee ‘17 (2018), Dir. Robert Greene
Written On The Wind (1956), Dir. Douglas Sirk
Imitation of Life (1959), Dir. Douglas Sirk
Racetrack (1985), Dir. Frederick Wiseman 
Strong Island (2017), Dir. Yance Ford 
Cameraperson (2016), Dir. Kirsten Johnson
Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018), RaMell Ross
Time (2020), Garrett Bradley
 Primary (1960), Dir. Robert Drew
Gimme Shelter (1970), Albert and David Maysles

Other Mentions:
Eric Hynes
Museum of the Moving Image
Peter Watkins
Chantal Ackerman
Robert Flaherty
Michael Moore
Direct Cinema movement


Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod

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.

The Documentary Accountability Working Group (DAWG) is making quite an impact in the documentary film world, promoting a framework for values-based documentary ethics and practices. Natalie Bullock Brown is its director, and she’s my guest this time around. We talk about DAWG’s suggestions as to how people agreeing to appear in documentaries ought to be treated, with regard to compensation, psychological services, community outreach and more. There’s some great overlap between this conversation and my podcast conversations with Byron Hurt and Jennifer Tiexiera & Camilla Hall, so please check those out too. 
Along with her work at DAWG, Natalie is an award-winning film producer who also teaches at North Carolina State University. She's held several fellowships, including one at the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. More about Natalie here.

Films mentioned in this episode:
Hazing (2022), Dir. Byron Hurt
Sabaya (2021), Dir. Hogir Hirori
Subject (2023), Dir. Jennifer Tiexiera & Camilla Hall


Other Mentions:
Documentary Accountability Working Group
Documentary Magazine
“Documentary Future: A Call For Accountability”
Sonya Childress
Bhawin Suchak
Youth FX
Molly Murphy
Hannah Hearn
Getting Real
Dr. Kameelah Mu’Min Rashad aka Oseguera


Follow us on Instagram! @ThousandRoadsPod

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.