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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

52:22

Opioid Addiction: This Drug May Kill You

Factual America ·

2020/05/05

Warning: This Drug May Kill You (2017) by broadcast journalist Perri Peltz is a heart-wrenching account of opioid addiction in the US. Before the coronavirus, a different epidemic plagued America. Medical researchers will hopefully develop a vaccine for Covid-19 in the near future. But more than 2 million Americans remain addicted to opioids. Is there any hope in sight? Norman Stone, award-winning director, producer and screenwriter, joins Factual America to discuss Peltz’s film. Norman has

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51:27

Louis Theroux, Religion and Free Speech in America

Factual America ·

2020/04/21

In America religion and politics are inextricably linked, despite what the US Constitution might say. Using The Most Hated Family in America (2007) by Louis Theroux and its sequel, America’s Most Hated Family in Crisis (2011), Factual America explores the history of religion in US politics. Not only does religion polarise American society, but it also played a big role in determining the winner of the 2016 US presidential election. Will the same be true in 2020? Emma Long, Senior Lecturer in

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56:33

Eating Animals, Factory Farming and the Pandemic

Factual America ·

2020/04/07

How many of us think about where the meat on our tables comes from? Well, we all should! That’s the message of Eating Animals (2017), produced and narrated by Natalie Portman and based on the best-selling book on factory farming by Jonathan Safran Froer. The film shines a light on corporate farming. Besides being inherently cruel to animals, it has destroyed entire ways of life and is devastating our environment. Now factory farming is threatening to kill us all by fostering a pandemic. However,

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46:29

Capital Punishment: Life and Death Row

Factual America ·

2020/03/24

Is it ever right to kill someone? Are lethal injections really humane? Is capital punishment going to be around forever? In some parts of the world the US is infamous for its continued use of the death penalty. Using the BBC’s Life and Death Row – The Mass Execution as a backdrop, Dr Vivien Miller discusses the history of capital punishment in America. In doing so, she reveals how the death penalty divides the US along several different fault lines: race, gender, religion and region. The first

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45:05

Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore and Climate Change

Factual America ·

2020/03/10

An Inconvenient Truth (2006) won two Academy Awards, and turned former Vice President of the United States Al Gore into an international celebrity. More importantly, it brought climate change and global warming to the forefront of our collective consciousness. Drawing on his own research, our guest Dr James Lyons shows how director Davis Guggenheim uses performance to dramatically animate risk in the film. In doing so, does he change the focus, away from climate change? Do the camera lights instead

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50:38

2020 American Election: Super Tuesday

Factual America ·

2020/02/25

Factual America caught up with director and producer Adithya Sambamurthy, who is heading to the US to cover the 2020 American election for The Guardian newspaper. We discuss the upcoming elections and take a look back at President Donald Trump’s rise to power. In 2016 and 2018 Adi spent weeks on the campaign trail filming and producing Anywhere but Washington. He shares his experiences criss-crossing America, where he was able to meet with Trump supporters and observe first hand the changing

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30:10

Globalisation of Factory Farming

Factual America ·

2020/02/11

Soyalism (2018) explores how factory farming has become a giant global business concentrated in the hands of a few Western and Chinese companies. Across the globe, people are eating more and more meat. Demand has increased sevenfold since 1960 with 70 billion animals currently being killed per year. That number is set to reach 120 billion by 2050. To meet this demand, corporate giants have taken over farming, creating massive ‘factories’ for the housing and feeding of livestock and waste disposal

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48:11

Gun Violence and Mass Shootings in America

Factual America ·

2020/01/28

America’s love affair with guns is one of its defining attributes, and the number of mass shootings hit an all-time high in 2019. While politicians vow to tackle the problem, a powerful gun lobby stands in the way. To help us understand why the US struggles with gun violence on such a massive scale, Dr Peter Squires, an expert on the subject, joins the show. He is a sociologist and professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Brighton, who has worked with many different police

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48:09

DA Pennebaker’s Dont Look Back

Factual America ·

2020/01/14

As a tribute to documentary film pioneer DA Pennebaker, who passed away in August 2019, Factual America explores his groundbreaking Dont Look Back (1967), considered one of the best documentary films of all time. Dr Stella Bruzzi, author of the acclaimed New Documentary, demonstrates how the film about Bob Dylan is a shining example of the direct cinema style pioneered by Pennebaker and in the process shows us why people like Michael Moore have called him the “grandfather of modern American

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43:00

Alex Gibney’s Theranos Scandal Documentary

Factual America ·

2020/01/14

In Silicon Valley, where “fake it till you make it” is a mantra, Elizabeth Holmes stood out. Theranos, the company she founded, drew the support and accolades of investors and senior statesmen alike – that is until a Wall Street Journal reporter’s prying questions spelled the beginning of the end. What originally looked like a revolutionary technology in blood sampling quickly became a scandal that swept the nation. Today we are joined by award-winning business and tech broadcaster, and host of

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33:34

Building Trump’s Border Wall in Texas

Factual America ·

2020/01/14

In The River and the Wall (2019), a group of modern-day adventurers led by filmmaker Ben Masters sets out on a 1,200-mile journey along the Texas-Mexico border to understand the economic, environmental and social impact of President Donald Trump’s border wall. They not only encounter a land of soaring vistas, outstanding natural beauty and unrivaled ruggedness but also discover something about themselves and the immigrant experience. In this episode we are joined by Sebastian Sauerborn, German

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36:33

Salesman by Albert and David Maysles

Factual America ·

2020/01/10

Award-winning journalist, Kevin Turley, joins Factual America to discuss Albert and David Maysles’ seminal documentary. Kevin places Salesman in the context of 1960s America and traces the film’s influence on documentary filmmaking to this day. Along the way Kevin and host Matthew Sherwood discover that the film about hard-luck Bible salesmen is actually about so much more — namely the pursuit of the American Dream. They talk about the day to day difficulties that many people had to face back then,

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