We explore three shortlisted documentaries: from Come See Me in the Good Light, director Ryan White joins us; director Amber Fares of Coexistence, My Ass! visits Doc Talk studios with the protagonist of her film, Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi; and from the short documentary We Were the Scenery, we welcome director Christopher Radcliff.

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Hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey dissect the documentary shortlists for the 98th Academy Awards. There were major snubs (a NatGeo darling and a celebrity-oriented HBO doc) — and surprising inclusions (numerous films without U.S. distribution). Oscar winner Ridley (12 Years a Slave) gets into the documentaries that should have made the cut but didn't.

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Filmmakers Victor Kossakofsky and Lynne Sachs join us for a conversation about their latest documentaries, which premiered at IDFA. Kossakovsky's Trillion unfolds in lustrous black and white, without dialogue. Sachs' film, Every Contact Leaves a Trace, begins with her going through a stack of 600 business cards she has collected over decades, and reveals what happens when she reaches out to some of those contacts. Hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey also discuss top documentary titles heading to Sundance 2026. 

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We report from the 41st Annual IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles, speaking with newly-minted winners as they come off stage. Joining us are Tamara Kotevska (The Tale of Silyan); Petra Costa and Alessandra Orofino (Apocalypse in the Tropics); Brittany Shyne (Seeds); Alex Megaro (WTO/99), and Jenny Raskin of Impact Partners (winner of the IDA's Pioneer Award). We explore what the IDA validation means for these creatives, as well as the topic on everyone's minds: how the potential merger of Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery would impact documentary filmmakers.

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We speak with the filmmakers behind three of the top contenders in the Oscars' Best Documentary Feature category: The Tale of Silyan, directed by Tamara Kotevska; Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk, directed by Sepideh Farsi, and Cover-Up, directed by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus. We caught up with them at SFFILM's Doc Stories in San Francisco, a 4-day film festival that has become  a critical stop during awards season.

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Doc Talk travels to Amsterdam for IDFA, the world's biggest docmentary festival. We speak with new Artistic Director Isabel Arrate Fernandez about assuming leadership of the festival after many years heading up the IDFA Bertha Fund. Arrate Fernandez discusses reaction to the festival's controversial decision to ban Israeli organiations that accept money from Israel's government to support their activities. We also visit with Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa in Amsterdam. Her Oscar-contendng Netflix documentary, Apocalypse in the Tropics, explores the rise of Christian nationalism in Brazil. Costa tells us her film has directly led to the launch of an investigation into her protagonist, fiery televangelist Sila Malafaia, a key backer of former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro.

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Wisdom of Happiness executive producers Richard Gere and Oren Moverman join us for a conversation about their documentary focusing on the Dalai Lama's insights into finding happiness in a world that seems full of chaos and uncertainty. Gere tells us how a technique borrowed from filmmaker Errol Morris helped transform the film into "pure magic."

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Doc Talk heads to San Francisco for SFFILM's Doc Stories festival, where we speak with SFFILM Executive Director Anne Lai and Director of Programming Jessie Fairbanks. We also visit with young filmmaker Tasha Van Zandt whose documentary A Life Illuminated closed the Doc Stories festival.

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We report from the 34th Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival in Arkansas, the longest running nonfiction cinema festival in North America. Festival Executive Director Ken Jacobson joins us to talk about highlights from this year and the festival's Filmmaker Forum, which confronted a crisis in documentary filmmaking after the defunding of a key entity that supports PBS. And we talk with Natchez director Suzannah Herbert and producer Darcy McKinnon about their award-winning film, which screened at HSDFF.

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We visit with a couple of emerging filmmakers -- Paige Bethmann, director of Remaining Native, and Juanjo Pereira, director of Under the Flags, the Sun. Bethmann's film centers on a teenage Indigenous athlete, Ku Stevens, who dreams of running track for the University of Oregon, a goal that would take him away from the Nevada reservation where he grew up. Pereira's film reframes archive footage to explore the military dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled Paraguay from 1954 to 1989. We recorded both interviews at the Camden International Film Festival in Maine, where Pereira and Bethmann screened their impressive work.

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