Doc Talk: A Deadline and Nō Studios Podcast

With the 25th Tribeca Festival about to kick off in New York City, we're joined by festival director Cara Cusumano for a preview of Tribeca's nonfiction lineup. Among the films slated to premiere are the latest from Oscar winner Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, docs about musician Sara Bareilles, late NY Gov. Mario Cuomo, and artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, a film by California's First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and Playing POTUS, the Josh Greenbaum film about comedians who have done wickedly funny impersonations of U.S. presidents. 

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Director Felipe Bustos Sierra joins the show to discuss his award-winning documentary Everybody to Kenmure Street, a riveting account of a spontaneous protest that sprang up in Glasgow, Scotland after UK authorities attempted to stage an immigration raid. Emma Thompson serves as executive producer of the film and appears in the documentary in the guise of "Van Man," a mysterious figure who latched onto the axle of an immigration van preventing it from carting off two men seized by Home Office agents. The Kenmure Street incident became an epic standoff with repercussions  from the UK to the U.S.

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Oscar-nominated actor Bruce Dern and director Mike Mendez join us to discuss Dernsie: The Amazing Life of Bruce Dern, their documentary premiering Wednesday at the Cannes Film Festival. Dern is not only one of Hollywood's greatest actors, but one of its greatest raconteurs.

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Filmmaker Alexandria Stapleton discusses her Emmy-contending Netflix series, Sean Combs: The Reckoning, a forensic examination of the sexual misconduct allegations against the rapper, actor, and mogul that landed Combs in federal prison. It's produced by Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson.

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Producer-director Colin Hanks and producer Ryan Reynolds join the show to share stories of making John Candy: I Like Me, their cinematic exploration of the beloved Canadian actor and SCTV sketch performer. Candy's two children plus many of his friends and famous collaborators — Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, Martin Short, Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and many others — appear in this Prime Video film, a strong Emmy contender.

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The proposed merger of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery would reshape the documentary landscape, putting HBO Documentary Films, CNN Films, HBO Max, Paramount+,  MTV Documentary Films and more under one roof. As major stars and filmmakers write an open letter protesting the merger, we speak with documentary veterans Marjan Safinia and Lois Vossen about the impact of the planned alliance on the nonfiction film community.

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We report from the 18th Milwaukee Film Festival, speaking two makers of two documentaries in the festival lineup: All of the Above, and Newport and the Great Folk Dream. All of the Above focuses on a world religions class taught in a Chicago public high school, while Newport examines the iconic music festival renowned for performances by Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash and more.

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Now entering its third year, the American Cinematheque's This Is Not a Fiction festival in Los Angeles has emerged as a major event for documentary lovers. We speak with AC film programmer Cindy Flores about this year's festival, running April 16-24. It will feature some of the greatest names in documentary, including Barbara Kopple, Gianfranco Rosi, Ross McElwee, Caveh Zahedi, and Liz Garbus among many others. The festival also features a robust lineup of mockumentaries, like Best in Show, Popstar: Never Stop Stopping, and Jackass Number Two.

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Doc Talk reports from CPH:DOX in Copenhagen. Artistic Director Niklas Engstrøm shares his highlights from the 2026 edition of the world-class festival and tells us how CPH:DOX keeps politicians at "arms length" to avoid outside interference in the program. And we visit with directors Hansen Lin and Siyi Chen who pitched their documentary Queens Ballroom at the CPH:FORUM.

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Filmmaker Julia Loktev joins us to discuss her award-winning documentary My Undesirable Friends: Part I - Last Air in Moscow, which chronicles the last independent television news source in Russia. The journalists in the film, mostly young women, found themselves treated as enemies of the state for daring to stray outside the bounds of Kremlin-approved reportage, victims of a crackdown on press freedom that only got worse after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

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