We’re in the field at the Toronto International Film Festival, interviewing makers of some of the biggest documentaries to play at TIFF, including The Last Republican, The Last of the Sea Women, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, and music-themed docs on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Paul Anka, and Pharrell Williams.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk goes inside the 20th Camden International Film Festival in Maine, speaking with Artistic Director Sean Flynn and filmmakers Petra Costa ('Apocalypse in the Tropics') and Elizabeth Lo ('Mistress Dispeller'). Camden has emerged as one of the most important all-documentary festivals in the world.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Seeking Mavis Beacon, director Jazmin Jones and her filmic collaborator Olivia McKayla Ross try to solve a cyber mystery: What became of the elegant Black woman featured on the cover of a groundbreaking learn-to-type software program? The young sleuths discuss the complex cultural truths exposed by their quixotic quest.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thom Powers, chief documentary programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival, joins the show to talk about the nonfiction lineup of this year's festival. How do you cut more than 900 submissions down to a final list of 21? Powers explains, and he shares his thoughts on the most buzzworthy titles soon to bow in Toronto.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doc Talk travels to Europe to speak with the creative director of Sheffield DocFest, the U.K.'s top all-documentary film festival, and the leaders of Sunny Side of the Doc, the biggest documentary marketplace that unfolds in La Rochelle, France.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey react to the Emmy nominations in the documentary categories, and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Lucy Walker discusses her towering new film Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What are the top Oscar-contending documentaries so far this year? Co-hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey look at the state of the race seven months into 2024. Films from Netflix, MTV Documentary Films, National Geographic, and Warner Bros. Discovery are in the mix, along with several docs that, so far, lack U.S. distribution.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Extraordinary artist Chiura Obata is the focus of the new documentary Obata's Yosemite, which explores his depiction of the national park through landscape paintings. Director Adam Prieto joins Doc Talk along with Kimi Hill, Obata's granddaughter. Hill tells us how Obata survived internment in a U.S. concentration camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, founding an art school for fellow detainees. As a bonus, we also speak with Milwaukee Film's artistic director, Cara Ogburn, about the challenges and opportunities facing film festivals in the U.S., including the Milwaukee Film Festival.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney discusses his Emmy-contending two-part documentary In Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon. And he talks about his upcoming film on Elon Musk, including the nasty name Musk called him after the business tycoon heard about the project.  

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Director Prentice Penny breaks down his Hulu documentary series Black Twitter, a three-part examination of how Black users of Twitter transformed the platform into a forum for humor, community, and a rallying point for social justice. And he ponders the fate of the social media site under chaotic ownership of Elon Musk.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices