Talking Documentary Podcast

When Phil Wall last appeared on this podcast, he was the everything guy—director, cinematographer, writer, editor—on The Book Keepers, a film about death and grief made intimate by how few hands touched it. Now Wall returns with a radically different project: a three-episode, 137-minute history of American men's professional soccer, delivered on a punishing deadline with a small army of creatives at his side. In Soccer Meets America, Wall is no longer the jack-of-all-trades, he’s a director in the classic sense.In this conversation, Wall talks about soccer's strange, stubborn failure to crack the American mainstream (despite a passionate hidden audience), why landing Werner Herzog as a guest interviewee was a validating win, and what it feels like to release the tripod someone is taking from your hands because—as they keep reminding you—you're the director now.

Music: Podington Bear

Dear Audrey follows veteran documentary filmmaker Martin Duckworth as he cares for his wife Audrey, who is living with Alzheimer’s. What begins as a portrait of daily life gradually expands into a reflection on memory, devotion, and acceptance. Director Jeremiah Hayes allows the narrative to emerge organically, and in so doing, captures moments of striking intimacy. The resulting film resists easy categorization. Dear Audrey is part biography, part love story, and part meditation. And it’s an anchored by Duckworth, whose openness gives the film its emotional weight and lasting impact.

Music: Podington Bear

Every summer, on the very edge of Chincoteague island, there was a little world called Inlet View. Generations came through: grandparents, parents, kids who grew up barefoot on the sand, all returning to the same sliver of shoreline year after year. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t curated. It was theirs … a working-class refuge built from patched roofs, borrowed tools, and a deep sense of neighborliness.

And then one day it wasn’t.

In this episode, filmmaker Amy Nicholson joins me to talk about Happy Campers, her lyrical, quietly devastating portrait of the final summer at Inlet View. Nicholson didn’t just observe this community. She lived in it, fell in love with it, and eventually watched it succumb to the economics of development. What began as a simple fascination with a hidden campground became a meditation on class, belonging, and the kinds of American communities we rarely see onscreen.

Music: Greenred Productions

Given today’s combative political environment, why would anyone want to watch a film about government? Well, because Brandon and Lance Kramer made it. Brothers and filmmakers, the Kramers have carved out a space in documentary that’s reflective and thoughtful in an era where loud and combative rule the day. In “The First Step,” the Kramers show that government still works when everyday citizens look beyond superficial differences and recognize their shared humanity. The film successfully follows up on their excellent 2015 film, “City of Trees,” a winning observation of how taxpayer programs really look at ground level … and how they change lives.

Intro and outro music by Podington Bear.

Even as a young boy growing up in Alaska, David Holthouse was fascinated by newspapers, storytelling and life on the margins. His ability to blend into his surroundings led to a career as a self-styled gonzo journalist. Holthouse did his best work on the inside, infiltrating groups as varied as neo-Nazis and crystal meth addicts. But as the media landscape changed, so too did Holthouse. He now applies his unique perspective to the world of documentary film and has produced a number of popular movies and series on major streamers such as Hulu and Netflix, including “Sasquatch” and “Night Stalker.”

Morgan Elliott is a documentary filmmaker and long-time resident of New York’s “North Country.” Going back to his childhood, Elliott had heard the story of Potsdam’s famous toilet garden, a self-styled protest by a Potsdam resident in response to perceived mistreatment by the village’s government. The toilets are revered by some, and reviled by others. Elliott waded into the dispute during the pandemic’s early years and emerged in 2022 with a feature documentary that captures a story that is at once quirky and profound.

Intro and outro music: Podington Bear

The Book Keepers tells the story of Phil Wall’s mother, Carol, a gifted writer who dreamed of becoming a published author and who finally achieved her goal … just as her long battle with breast cancer took a turn for the worse. Carol was unable to tour with her new book and passed away shortly thereafter. Her husband, Dick, did what a loyal husband would do: He went on the book tour in her place. Her son, Phil, did what a filmmaker does: He picked up his camera and followed along. Wall processed his own grief by following his dad's journey to understanding his new life as a widower. Wall also captures intimate behind-the-scenes conversations with his dad, who later pursues an unexpected course that leads to delicate and surprising moments.

Intro and outro music: Podington Bear

Some 20 years ago, New York filmmaker Zachary Levy went looking for a story that would become his first documentary feature film. He wound up finding the personality of a lifetime in Stanley Pleskun, a New Jersey scrap metal hauler with a colorful side hustle. In Levy’s 2009 documentary Strongman, Levy contributes an enduring character to the canon of vérité filmmaking.

Intro music: Arne Bang Huseby

Outro music: Jahzzar

Ten years ago, Shaleece Haas stumbled upon a musician whose lyrics captured her attention ... and then her imagination. Turns out the musician, Bennett Wallace, had a story to go along with his music. It was a story increasingly playing out in living rooms across the country and one that is forcing American society to rethink old ideas about gender and identity. In "Real Boy," Haas tenderly trains her lens on a young transgender musician, his best friend and mentor, and the mother who struggles to accept the reality of who her son is becoming.

Intro Music by Lobo Loco

Outro Music by Kevin MacLeod

Robert Greene is an award-winning filmmaker who directed the highly regarded Netflix documentary, "Procession." But at the dawn of the 2010s, Greene was only beginning to refine his voice and vision as a filmmaker. In 2011, Greene parlayed a family connection into access to a handful of small-time pro wrestlers and followed them as they prepared for a show in rural North Carolina. The result is documentary treasure. Greene's film, "Fake It So Real," explores a subculture that alternately generates smiles and winces but ultimately wins your heart. The film also captures a slice of rural America in the years before Donald Trump exploded onto the political scene, straining the already fraught relationship between urban and rural Americans.