Richard Wershe, Jr, aka White Boy Rick, is the subject of a true-crime documentary that recently landed on Netflix. Shawn Rech, the award-winning director and producer of White Boy (2017), joins us to talk about the tragic circumstances surrounding White Boy Rick's over-30-year incarceration for a nonviolent offence. Shawn is well-known for creating documentaries that help to overturn wrongful convictions or over-sentencing. White Boy tells the story of Richard, who was an FBI informant as a chi...
Apr 13, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Murder Among the Mormons (2021) is the new Netflix true-crime docuseries about Mark Hofmann, who is one of the most notable forgers in history. Hofmann created forgeries related to the Latter Day Saint movement, which led to fame and fortune. But the truth caught up with Hofmann one fateful day in 1985, as two innocent people lost their lives. We are joined by award-winning co-director and producer of Murder Among the Mormons, Tyler Measom . His previous work includes Leaving the Cult: Sons of P...
Apr 05, 2021•56 min
James Jordan, the father of basketball legend Michael Jordan, was found tragically murdered in the middle of swamp just days after his 57th birthday in 1993. There were many mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, but the investigation and trial were deemed a success, resulting in the conviction of two teenage boys. But why does one of the convicted still proclaim his innocence almost 30 years later? We are joined by award-winning director and producer of the soon to be released docu-ser...
Mar 30, 2021•59 min
On paper, Tina Turner probably should never have become a rock-and-roll superstar. But there she is anyway, one of the greatest survivors in modern music, who has overcome extreme adversity to define her career, her identity and her legacy on her own terms. TINA (2021) offers a fresh perspective on the life and career of Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock and Roll. Through never-before-seen footage and previously unreleased recordings, the film draws back the curtain on Tina's life, introducing us t...
Mar 23, 2021•54 min
When we think of alternative music of the 1990s, bands like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Rage Against the Machine or Green Day immediately come to mind – bands who were supported by major labels and commercially viable. However, there was a whole sea of other underground bands, spanning a few generations, who were completely fobbed off by the corporate music labels, who didn't sell as many records, and whose careers were overshadowed by their commercially successful counterparts. Joining us in th...
Mar 18, 2021•48 min
Martha Cooper is an iconic American photojournalist and the unlikely hero of street artists across the globe. She documented New York's underground graffiti scene in the 1970s, at a time when street art was looked down upon as being immoral and lacking in artistic merit. But Martha instead fell in love with the scene and in 1984 published her photos in Subway Art . After a failed launch, the book has gone on to be one of the most sold, and stolen, art books of all time. It also influenced a gene...
Mar 09, 2021•42 min
Tim O'Brien is one of the most influential living American writers, a National Book Award winner and the author of the groundbreaking book The Things They Carried . Tim joins us along with award winning director and producer Aaron Matthews to discuss Aaron's film, The War and Peace of Tim O’Brien . Aaron spent over a year filming Tim as he battled to write one final book – a legacy for his young family about life and fatherhood – even as Tim and his family remain haunted by the ghosts of the Vie...
Mar 02, 2021•1 hr 7 min
Rural Appalachia is a part of America that’s vanishing before our eyes. With the loss of the coal industry, the future for the people of eastern Kentucky is uncertain. However, this is what inspires the self-proclaimed "last hillbilly" Brian Ritchie. French directors and writers, Diane Sara Bouzgarrou and Thomas Jenkoe, join us to discuss their award-winning documentary The Last Hillbilly (2020). The film won the Best International Doc Award at the Torino Film Festival, and received a special me...
Feb 16, 2021•1 hr 3 min
The HBO documentary miniseries McMillion$ tells the gripping tale behind the McDonald's Monopoly promotion scam. Between 1989 and 2001 a criminal ring defrauded more than $24 million in prizes from McDonald's. If not for a tipoff to a backwater FBI office, McDonald's never would have found out about the fraud. The ensuing investigation resulted in the arrests of over 50 people. Directors and executive producers James Lee Hernandez and Brian Lazarte bring this incredible story to life. They share...
Feb 09, 2021•53 min
Steve McQueen, the Hollywood icon, had a passion for car racing. However, his long lost Formula 1 film project never saw the light of day – until now. Joining us to talk about this incredible story are the filmmakers behind Steve McQueen: The Lost Movie (2021), director, writer and producer Alex Rodger, and archivist Richard Wiseman. The film elegantly captures Steve McQueen's stardom and passion for car racing. It is set against the backdrop of the 1960s – glory days for both Formula 1 and Holl...
Feb 02, 2021•57 min
Miles Davis was among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. An iconic trumpeter and composer, Miles changed the genre of jazz more times than anyone before him or anyone since. He invented what we today call cool jazz, hard bop, and jazz fusion. His album Kind of Blue is one of the greatest pieces of art of the 20th century. Award-winning director and producer, Stanley Nelson, joins us to discuss his documentary Miles Davis: Birth of The Cool. ...
Jan 26, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Saturday Night Live , The Blues Brothers , and the National Lampoon — John Belushi was an iconic figure of the 1970s comedy scene. But he was more than just a comic genius. At one moment, Belushi had the number one show on television, the number one film at the box office, and the number one record on the charts. Just three years later he died from a heroin overdose aged just 33. How did such a talented figure come to such a tragic end? The award-winning director, producer, and writer, R.J. Cutl...
Jan 19, 2021•53 min
For years Martin Luther King Jr, the leader and hero of the civil rights movement, faced constant surveillance and harassment by the US government. Helping us to learn more about this dark chapter in America's history is award-winning director, editor and producer, Sam Pollard, whose latest film MLK/FBI premieres on January 15th 2021, ahead of Martin Luther King Jr Day on January 18th. As a filmmaker with a career spanning more than three decades, Sam Pollard has won three Emmys and along with S...
Jan 12, 2021•48 min
Abraham Lincoln may have been America's greatest leader. The 16th president ended slavery and led the nation out of one of its darkest periods. However, Lincoln's life and legacy were cut short that fateful night in 1865, when the actor John Wilkes Booth entered Ford's Theatre and killed the president with an assassin's bullet. Today, only 130 photographs of President Lincoln are known to have survived. But is it possible that another image exists, secretly taken after he was shot, and kept hidd...
Dec 22, 2020•1 hr 10 min
We live under the spell of big data. We give the big tech firms access to our personal data and they shape our lives without us even knowing it. This includes how we choose our leaders. Award-winning directors and producers Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer join us to discuss their film The Great Hack , released by Netflix last year. The Great Hack observes the actors in the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal surrounding the 2016 US presidential election. Jehane and Karim discuss how data has...
Dec 15, 2020•59 min
Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins is a documentary that chronicles the career of the acclaimed Texas columnist and journalist. Molly was nominated multiple times for the Pulitzer Prize for her commentary, and her Texas twang became an unlikely voice of liberal America. Now 13 years after Molly’s untimely death, award-winning director and producer, Janice Engel, brings Molly’s acerbic wit and no-holds-barred approach to journalism to the big screen. Janice shares with us how she wen...
Dec 08, 2020•1 hr 3 min
Today we're talking about Horton Foote (1916-2009), the award-winning playwright and screenwriter. In the recently released documentary Horton Foote: The Road to Home , the celebrated screenwriter Anne Rapp helps us to learn more about this unsung Texas and American legend. Foote was born and raised in Wharton, Texas, and he went on to become a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, the winner of two Academy Awards for screenwriting, an Emmy Award for television writing, and was a recipient of the N...
Dec 01, 2020•1 hr 30 min
Chuck Berry (1926-2017) was the original King of Rock and Roll. That is according to Jon Brewer, and being referred to as 'God of rock docs,' he should know. Jon discusses Chuck Berry and the making of his documentary about the American icon. The film tells the story of Chuck’s life through the lens of his relatives and friends, and also uses dramatic reenactments of certain situations Chuck Berry lived through. Jon goes on to share a host of amazing stories drawn from his 50 years in the music ...
Nov 24, 2020•1 hr 35 min
On a daily basis, we are inundated with more bad news about the environmental catastrophe caused by climate change, unfolding in front of our very eyes. But is it too late? Can anything really be done? It's enough to make us give up. Many of us have. But a simple solution may be literally underneath our feet, according to the Netflix documentary Kiss the Ground from award-winning filmmakers Josh and Rebecca Tickell. Kiss the Ground reveals that by regenerating the world's soils, we can completel...
Nov 17, 2020•1 hr 8 min
On August 11th 2014, the world was shocked to find out that Robin Williams had died by suicide. For someone who brought so much humour to the world, it was a tragic, traumatic end. But no one knew how much more there was to the story. Left to speculate on Robin’s motives, the media circus spun out of control, leaving the public in the dark about a complicated and obscured truth. Robin, bright, funny, quick witted, had lost a battle against an unknown enemy, the nearly impossible to diagnose brai...
Nov 10, 2020•59 min
Today is a special US presidential election edition of Factual America . Americans are heading to the polls. Will they re-elect Donald Trump? Or will they opt for a change and vote for Joe Biden? We can’t say either way with any certainty. What we can say is that America is a polarised society. And whatever the result, the politics of division are here to stay, so it seems. That division and polarisation are captured brilliantly in Boys State , the Sundance Jury Prize Winner from filmmakers Aman...
Nov 03, 2020•54 min
The singing career of Linda Ronstadt spanned five decades. A versatile and talented artist, she has won ten Grammys, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music Awards and an Emmy. Along the way, she recorded the biggest selling foreign language album of all time. Now retired from singing, Linda continues to give back to the community, as captured by award-winning director and producer James Keach in Linda and the Mockingbirds. James joins us to share a side of Linda Ronstadt that ...
Oct 27, 2020•52 min
Sir David Attenborough is a broadcast legend. And probably no individual has seen more of the Earth’s wilderness in his illustrious nearly 70-year career. That makes him the perfect witness to the devastating changes afflicting our planet. In David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet (2020), which premiered on Netflix, co-director Keith Scholey of Silverback Films and producer Colin Butfield of the World Wildlife Fund bring us Sir David’s witness statement. In the process, they also provide us wi...
Oct 20, 2020•56 min
America is a land of natural beauty and natural resources. Unfortunately, these too often come into conflict. Never was this more true when it comes to America’s 640 million acres of public lands. Filmmakers David Byars and Jeremy Rubingh document the fight to protect America’s public lands for future generations in their film Public Trust which recently premiered on YouTube with tremendous success. The executive producers of the film are Patagonia’s founder Yvon Chouinard and famous actor and f...
Oct 13, 2020•1 hr 5 min
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away on September 18, 2020. She had a long and illustrious career as an advocate for gender equality, a jurist and most famously as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court. Joining us to pay tribute to this true American icon is Julie Cohen, together with Betsy West, the co-director and co-producer of RBG. RBG is a documentary that beautifully captures the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The film itself premiered in 2018 at the Sundance ...
Oct 06, 2020•1 hr 14 min
Action Park in Vernon, New Jersey was straight out of a Gen X teenager’s dream. The R-rated version of a John Hughes film, or as Jason Bailey at the New York Times puts it, “a rule-free stew of dangerous rides, teen guests, teen employees, raging hormones, 80s-style machismo, and booze”. But for all the nostalgia, the place comes with bad memories for those whose loved ones were seriously injured, and in some cases killed by the reckless actions of Gene Mulvihill, the fallen Wall Street mogul wh...
Sep 29, 2020•57 min
When we think of Texas, we think of wide open spaces, ranches, rugged individualism, the Wild West, and invariably cowboys. But where do women fit into this mix? In their film Good Ol Girl , Sarah Brennan Kolb and Kyle Kelley put this question into the context of present-day Texas. The film tells the stories of three young modern-day Texan cowgirls, and explores the role of women in cowboy culture. Women are increasingly taking a larger role in the traditionally male dominated industry of ranchi...
Sep 22, 2020•1 hr 10 min
America is famous for its sports franchises and rabid fans. However, there is one group of Americans for whom sports raise painful memories. These are the Native Americans. At least some people are trying to put an end to racial stereotyping in US sports. And they have already succeeded in changing the name of the Washington Football Team. Aviva Kempner is the award-winning director of successful docs like “The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg”. Kevin Blackistone is an award-winning national spo...
Sep 15, 2020•1 hr 8 min
Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. He may also be America’s first black cultural icon, blazing a trail for other African American athletes like LeBron James. Besides his performance on the court, Jordan rocketed to fame on the back of a clever and innovative marketing campaign to sell sneakers, and a shrewd business model that made him a billionaire. However, has success come with a price? Well, Nike and Jordan have made billions of dollars. They have also created a sh...
Sep 08, 2020•1 hr 20 min
In our final episode of Season One, we’re joined by John Lewis, aka Badass Vegan. John’s upcoming documentary, They’re Trying to Kill Us , touches on so many of the issues that we’ve looked at this year on the podcast – factory farming, race and Big Pharma, just to name a few – but this time through the unique lens of hip hop. They’re Trying to Kill Us explores the connections between diet, poverty and systemic racism. As well as looking at veganism, we discuss Big Pharma and the link between mi...
Aug 11, 2020•1 hr
