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PODCAST

Factual America

Factual America examines America through the lens of documentary filmmaking. Guests include Academy Award, Emmy and Grammy-winning documentary filmmakers and producers, their subjects, as well as experts on the American experience. Find out more about the current and upcoming documentaries on Netflix, HBO, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, Sky Documentaries and other platforms directly from the creators. Whether we discuss true crime, music, burning social and political topics, history, or arts,

tv & film film interviews

All Episodes

41:59

Martha Cooper: The Unlikely Hero of Street Art

Factual America ·

2021/03/09

Martha Cooper is an iconic American photojournalist and the unlikely hero of street artists across the globe. She documented New York's underground graffiti scene in the 1970s, at a time when street art was looked down upon as being immoral and lacking in artistic merit. But Martha instead fell in love with the scene and in 1984 published her photos in Subway Art. After a failed launch, the book has gone on to be one of the most sold, and stolen, art books of all time. It also influenced a

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01:07:16

Tim O'Brien: The Final Book on the Vietnam War

Factual America ·

2021/03/02

Tim O'Brien is one of the most influential living American writers, a National Book Award winner and the author of the groundbreaking book The Things They Carried. Tim joins us along with award winning director and producer Aaron Matthews to discuss Aaron's film, The War and Peace of Tim O’Brien. Aaron spent over a year filming Tim as he battled to write one final book – a legacy for his young family about life and fatherhood – even as Tim and his family remain haunted by the ghosts of the Vietnam

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50:26

Billie Eilish: A Portrait of the Artist

Factual America ·

2021/02/23

In the blink of an eye, Billie Eilish has gone from being an aspiring musician to a five-time Grammy Award winner and global superstar with a multimillion-fan following on social media. Brilliantly capturing this incredible journey in his new documentary, award-winning director RJ Cutler returns to the podcast to discuss Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry (2021). Inspired by musicals, concert films and observational cinema, the film takes an intimate look at Billie Eilish’s remarkable rise

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01:03:14

The Last Hillbilly of Rural Appalachia

Factual America ·

2021/02/16

Rural Appalachia is a part of America that’s vanishing before our eyes. With the loss of the coal industry, the future for the people of eastern Kentucky is uncertain. However, this is what inspires the self-proclaimed "last hillbilly" Brian Ritchie. French directors and writers, Diane Sara Bouzgarrou and Thomas Jenkoe, join us to discuss their award-winning documentary The Last Hillbilly (2020). The film won the Best International Doc Award at the Torino Film Festival, and received a special

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53:29

McMillion$: McDonald's Monopoly Fraud Revisited

Factual America ·

2021/02/09

The HBO documentary miniseries McMillion$ tells the gripping tale behind the McDonald's Monopoly promotion scam. Between 1989 and 2001 a criminal ring defrauded more than $24 million in prizes from McDonald's. If not for a tipoff to a backwater FBI office, McDonald's never would have found out about the fraud. The ensuing investigation resulted in the arrests of over 50 people. Directors and executive producers James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte bring this incredible story to life. They share

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57:13

Steve McQueen: The Lost Formula 1 Movie

Factual America ·

2021/02/02

Steve McQueen, the Hollywood icon, had a passion for car racing. However, his long lost Formula 1 film project never saw the light of day – until now. Joining us to talk about this incredible story are the filmmakers behind Steve McQueen: The Lost Movie (2021), director, writer and producer Alex Rodger, and archivist Richard Wiseman. The film elegantly captures Steve McQueen's stardom and passion for car racing. It is set against the backdrop of the 1960s – glory days for both Formula 1 and

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01:00:42

Miles Davis: The Coolest Music Innovator of the 20th...

Factual America ·

2021/01/26

Miles Davis was among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. An iconic trumpeter and composer, Miles changed the genre of jazz more times than anyone before him or anyone since. He invented what we today call cool jazz, hard bop, and jazz fusion. His album Kind of Blue is one of the greatest pieces of art of the 20th century. Award-winning director and producer, Stanley Nelson, joins us to discuss his documentary Miles Davis: Birth of The Cool. We

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52:59

Belushi: The Brilliance and Tragedy of a Comedy Genius

Factual America ·

2021/01/19

Saturday Night Live, The Blues Brothers, and the National Lampoon — John Belushi was an iconic figure of the 1970s comedy scene. But he was more than just a comic genius. At one moment, Belushi had the number one show on television, the number one film at the box office, and the number one record on the charts. Just three years later he died from a heroin overdose aged just 33. How did such a talented figure come to such a tragic end? The award-winning director, producer, and writer, R.J. Cutler,

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48:24

MLK/FBI: America on a Collision Course

Factual America ·

2021/01/12

For years Martin Luther King Jr, the leader and hero of the civil rights movement, faced constant surveillance and harassment by the US government. Helping us to learn more about this dark chapter in America's history is award-winning director, editor and producer, Sam Pollard, whose latest film MLK/FBI premieres on January 15th 2021, ahead of Martin Luther King Jr Day on January 18th. As a filmmaker with a career spanning more than three decades, Sam Pollard has won three Emmys and along with Spike

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01:09:49

The Mysterious Photo of Abraham Lincoln

Factual America ·

2020/12/22

Abraham Lincoln may have been America's greatest leader. The 16th president ended slavery and led the nation out of one of its darkest periods. However, Lincoln's life and legacy were cut short that fateful night in 1865, when the actor John Wilkes Booth entered Ford's Theatre and killed the president with an assassin's bullet. Today, only 130 photographs of President Lincoln are known to have survived. But is it possible that another image exists, secretly taken after he was shot, and kept

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58:48

The Great Hack: Big Tech and the Post-Truth World

Factual America ·

2020/12/15

We live under the spell of big data. We give the big tech firms access to our personal data and they shape our lives without us even knowing it. This includes how we choose our leaders. Award-winning directors and producers Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer join us to discuss their film The Great Hack, released by Netflix last year. The Great Hack observes the actors in the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal surrounding the 2016 US presidential election. Jehane and Karim discuss how data has

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01:03:27

The Political Wit and Persona of Molly Ivins

Factual America ·

2020/12/08

Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins is a documentary that chronicles the career of the acclaimed Texas columnist and journalist. Molly was nominated multiple times for the Pulitzer Prize for her commentary, and her Texas twang became an unlikely voice of liberal America. Now 13 years after Molly’s untimely death, award-winning director and producer, Janice Engel, brings Molly’s acerbic wit and no-holds-barred approach to journalism to the big screen. Janice shares with us how she went from

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01:30:02

Horton Foote: The Greatest Playwright You've Never...

Factual America ·

2020/12/01

Today we're talking about Horton Foote (1916-2009), the award-winning playwright and screenwriter. In the recently released documentary Horton Foote: The Road to Home, the celebrated screenwriter Anne Rapp helps us to learn more about this unsung Texas and American legend. Foote was born and raised in Wharton, Texas, and he went on to become a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, the winner of two Academy Awards for screenwriting, an Emmy Award for television writing, and was a recipient of the

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01:35:14

Chuck Berry: The Original King of Rock and Roll

Factual America ·

2020/11/24

Chuck Berry (1926-2017) was the original King of Rock and Roll. That is according to Jon Brewer, and being referred to as 'God of rock docs,' he should know. Jon discusses Chuck Berry and the making of his documentary about the American icon. The film tells the story of Chuck’s life through the lens of his relatives and friends, and also uses dramatic reenactments of certain situations Chuck Berry lived through. Jon goes on to share a host of amazing stories drawn from his 50 years in the music

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01:07:50

Kiss the Ground: How We Can Reverse Climate Change

Factual America ·

2020/11/17

On a daily basis, we are inundated with more bad news about the environmental catastrophe caused by climate change, unfolding in front of our very eyes. But is it too late? Can anything really be done? It's enough to make us give up. Many of us have. But a simple solution may be literally underneath our feet, according to the Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground from award-winning filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell. Kiss the Ground reveals that by regenerating the world's soils, we can completely

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59:08

Robin’s Wish: Who Robin Williams Really Was

Factual America ·

2020/11/10

On August 11th 2014, the world was shocked to find out that Robin Williams had died by suicide. For someone who brought so much humour to the world, it was a tragic, traumatic end. But no one knew how much more there was to the story. Left to speculate on Robin’s motives, the media circus spun out of control, leaving the public in the dark about a complicated and obscured truth. Robin, bright, funny, quick witted, had lost a battle against an unknown enemy, the nearly impossible to diagnose brain

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53:33

Boys State: A Reflection of a Polarised Society

Factual America ·

2020/11/03

Today is a special US presidential election edition of Factual America. Americans are heading to the polls. Will they re-elect Donald Trump? Or will they opt for a change and vote for Joe Biden? We can’t say either way with any certainty. What we can say is that America is a polarised society. And whatever the result, the politics of division are here to stay, so it seems. That division and polarisation are captured brilliantly in Boys State, the Sundance Jury Prize Winner from filmmakers Amanda

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51:56

Linda Ronstadt: An Homage to Mexican Americans

Factual America ·

2020/10/27

The singing career of Linda Ronstadt spanned five decades. A versatile and talented artist, she has won ten Grammys, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music Awards and an Emmy. Along the way, she recorded the biggest selling foreign language album of all time. Now retired from singing, Linda continues to give back to the community, as captured by award-winning director and producer James Keach in Linda and the Mockingbirds. James joins us to share a side of Linda Ronstadt that few

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55:56

A Life on Our Planet: Sir David Attenborough’s...

Factual America ·

2020/10/20

Sir David Attenborough is a broadcast legend. And probably no individual has seen more of the Earth’s wilderness in his illustrious nearly 70-year career. That makes him the perfect witness to the devastating changes afflicting our planet. In David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet (2020), which premiered on Netflix, co-director Keith Scholey of Silverback Films and producer Colin Butfield of the World Wildlife Fund bring us Sir David’s witness statement. In the process, they also provide us with

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01:05:02

Public Trust: The Urgency to Protect US Public Lands

Factual America ·

2020/10/13

America is a land of natural beauty and natural resources. Unfortunately, these too often come into conflict. Never was this more true when it comes to America’s 640 million acres of public lands. Filmmakers David Byars and Jeremy Rubingh document the fight to protect America’s public lands for future generations in their film Public Trust which recently premiered on YouTube with tremendous success. The executive producers of the film are Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard and famous actor and

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191 results

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