In the Same Breath is a strikingly original analysis of the early days of the pandemic as it unfolded in China and the United States. Filmmaker Nanfu Wang draws upon multiple sources of footage to study how governments shaped the messaging about coronavirus and how they missed opportunities to limit the virus. Her collaborators include her husband Michael Shade as an editor and Jialing Zhang as one of the producers. Nanfu and Jialing previously appeared on episode #115 to discuss their film One Child Nation about China’s extreme efforts to control population growth. Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviews Nanfu about the logistical and emotional challenges of navigating China’s censorship. She discusses the lessons she learned making her first film Hooligan Sparrow, about a Chinese dissident, that was her first experience with government pressure.

“Enemies of the State” looks at the strange case of Matt DeHart, a member of the hacktivist group Anonymous who was prosecuted for child pornography. He claimed the charges were a cover up to seize his computers containing government secrets. Director Sonia Kennebeck and producer Ines Hoffman Kanna spent years trying to untangle the knotty mysteries of his case. Their previous film National Bird (2016) won the Ridenhour Documentary Film Prize for its profile of three people who worked on the U.S. military’s drone program and became whistle blowers. One of the film’s subjects Daniel Hale was recently convicted under the Espionage Act. Sonia discusses his case recently covered in The Washington Post. Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviews Sonia about both films.

Enemies of the State is now available on VOD from IFC Films.

Warning: this episode reveals details from “Enemies of the State” that might be considered spoilers if you haven't seen the film.

On Twitter: @soniakennebeck @c_odebreaker @thompowers @PureNonfiction

Fran Lebowitz is one of New York’s great conversationalists. Martin Scorsese's new Netflix series “Pretend It’s a City” lets her talk at length about her five decades of living in New York City. Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviews Lebowitz about working with Scorsese and her long friendship with Toni Morrison to whom the series is dedicated. Lebowitz also shares her opinions on the New York mayoral election and discusses her mother Ruth.

This interview was recorded on May 7, 2020 for DOC NYC Spring Showcase.

Documentary editor Lewis Erskine died last week at age 64. He was cherished by colleagues as a storyteller and a teacher. His Twitter handle was @editorsavant and his credits include Miles Davis: Birth of the Cool, Freedom Riders and Jackie Robinson. In the days after his death, Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers spoke to three of Lewis' colleagues. Filmmaker Stanley Nelson describes first meeting Lewis when they worked for WNET public television and how they collaborated for over two decades starting with The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords. Sabrina Schmidt Gordon, who was Lewis’ assistant editor on The Black Press, celebrates his legacy as a mentor. Shola Lynch describes how she met Lewis working together on Ken Burns’ Jazz series, then later turned to him for help on her films Chisholm 72: Unbought and Unbossed and Free Angela and All Political Prisoners.

Further links referenced in the conversation:

Black Documentary Collective

The Creative Power of BIPOC Editors panel

BIPOC Editors Database

Master Class with Lewis Erskine and City College (2019)

Lewis Erskine at Sundance 2017 “Examine Your Privilege"

“Movements are messy,” says Astra Taylor. She knows this not only from studying activist history, but also from personal experience as a co-founder of the Debt Collective. Their work succeeded in canceling over $2 billion of student debt. Astra’s new short documentary You Are Not a Loan (free on The Intercept) brings together students and professors to discuss changing the cost of education. She’s also published a new book of essays Remake the World. Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers talks to Astra about both new works. She reflects on the legacy of Occupy Wall Street and on her friend David Graeber, author of Debt: The First 5000 Years and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory, who died last year.

Links to further references in this discussion:

Episode 93: Astra Taylor on “What is Democracy?”

Democracy May Not Exist, But We’ll Miss It When It’s Gone

Berkeley in the Sixties

Encounter at Kwacha House

The Murder of Fred Hampton

“When We Were Kings” director Leon King died on March 8 at age 84. He took over twenty years to make his Oscar-winning documentary about the boxers Muhammad Ali vs George Foreman, filmed in Zaire in 1974 and completed in 1996.

Further links:

Watch “When We Were Kings"

Watch “Soul Power”

Watch “Smash His Camera"

New York Times obituary on Leon Gast

Leon Gast on the making of his first film “Our Latin Thing”

Pure Nonfiction episode 15: Muhammad Ali on Film

The New Yorker on William Greaves’ "The Fight"

This episode's closing narration refers to the reckoning over documenting BIPOC stories. For more, read Sonya Childress & Natalie Bullock Brown in Documentary and Stanley Nelson in the Los Angeles Times.

Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers explores the story of Leon's perseverance in interviews with his wife Geri Spolan-Gast, producer David Sonenberg, editor Jeffrey Kusama-Hinte and filmmaker Barbara Kopple.

The new Hollywood film “Judas and the Black Messiah” is based on the lives of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton and the person who betrayed him, FBI informant William O’Neal. The film’s director Shaka King has credited documentaries for playing a key role in his research. One of his main influences was “Eyes on the Prize II” (1990) that scored the journalistic feat of interviewing O’Neal after he had gone into a federal witness protection program. Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers interviews four members of the “Eyes” team - directors Louis Massiah and Terry Kay Rockefeller along with researchers Noland Walker and co-director Bennett Singer. They describe how they got O’Neal to talk, why questions still linger about his reported suicide, and the legacy of the Black Panthers.

Further resources:

- Learn more about our guests: Louis Massiah (executive director, Scribe Video Center), Terry Kay Rockefeller, Bennett Singer (co-director, Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin and Cured), Noland Walker (co-programmer, ITVS’s Independent Lens)

- Watch all 14 episodes of Eyes on the Prize on Kanopy This podcast conversation touches upon episode 9 “Power!” about the Black Panthers and especially focuses on episode 12 “A Nation of Law?” both co-directed by Louis Massiah and Terry Kay Rockefeller. Read the book Voices of Freedom, an oral history based on interviews from "Eyes on the Prize,” edited in part by Bennett Singer.

- Watch the raw footage of William O’Neal’s interview on Vimeo or read the transcript from the "Eyes on the Prize" archives at Washington University. Browse the full collection.

- Watch The Murder of Fred Hampton (1971), directed by Howard Alk and Michael Gray, on Vimeo from the Chicago Film Archives.

- Read the TruthOut article by Fred Hampton’s attorney Flint Taylor on recent revelations about J. Edgar Hoover’s connection to William O’Neal.

- Read articles from 1990 about the death of William O’Neal in the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Reader.

- Listen to the Pure Nonfiction interview with Jon Else discussing his book True South about the making of "Eyes on the Prize.”

- For more on COINTELPRO, watch Sam Pollard’s MLK/FBI about surveillance of Martin Luther King Jr; Johanna Hamilton’s 1971 about the break-in to a FBI office that revealed the counter intelligence program.

- Watch Stanley Nelson’s Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution.

- In the podcast, Noland Walker mentions the COINTELPRO plan to disrupt the 1972 National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana. Watch William Greaves’ recently restored film Nationtime covering that event.

- For further viewing related to this era, watch Shola Lynch's Free Angela and All Political Prisoners and Sam Green and Bill Siegel’s Weather Underground.

- For more recent documentaries on FBI surveillance and informants, see Lyric Cabral and David Felix Sutcliffe’s (T)ERROR, Assia Boundaoui’s The Feeling of Being Watched, Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega’s Better This World and Jamie Meltzer’s Informant.

True crime documentaries are booming. But what do they tell us about criminal justice and what do they leave out? Alex Vitale, the author of the book “The End of Policing,” talks to Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers about the state of the genre. Alex gives favorable takes on the Netflix series “Time: The Kalief Browder Story” and Errol Morris’ classic “The Thin Blue Line.” But he raises questions about other trends. For more on this topic, listen to the podcast “Running from COPS.”

Jean Tsien has worked as a documentary editor for over 30 years with directors such as Orlando Bagwell, Barbara Kopple, and Roger Ross Williams. She’s been a mentor to emerging filmmakers, not only in the U.S. but also in China and Taiwan where she lived until moving to New York at age 11. Now Jean has moved into producing. Her latest project is "76 Days," set in Wuhan, China during the city’s lockdown for Covid-19. DOC NYC recently honored her with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Jean has stories to tell, but normally prefers to stay behind the scenes. Talking on a podcast? That’s way outside her comfort zone. She explains why to Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers.

“Don’t film if you can live without filming.” Those are the words of Victor Kossakovsky from his 10 Rules of documentary making. Those rules are the starting point for a wide-ranging conversation with Victor along with Kirsten Johnson and Garrett Bradley, moderated by Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers. All three directors were part of DOC NYC’s 2020 Short List for feature documentaries. Kirsten was previously on episode 24 discussing her previous film Cameraperson; her latest film is Dick Johnson is Dead on Netflix. Garrett was previously on episode 125 discussing her new film Time on Amazon Prime. Victor’s new film is Gunda, distributed in the U.S. by Neon. In this conversation he also refers to his earlier films Losev and The Belovs.