Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers

Sometimes, timing is everything. If Julia Loktev’s 5 hour and 24-minute documentary masterpiece “My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 — Last Air in Moscow” can be boiled down to its essence, it may be that, often in life, there is a “before” and an “after,” and nothing can possibly prepare you for what comes after. In this case, the event that changes everything for the courageous generation of Russian journalists that came of age under Vladimir Putin’s reign is the Russian leader’s cataclysmic invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.   Julia and journalist / film participant Ksenia Mironova join Ken on “Top Docs” to discuss the vibrant world of independent journalism that existed in Russia in the period prior to the invasion, and the subsequent crackdown that ended it all. Filming Ksenia and a cohort of women journalists in the months leading up the invasion with her iPhone, Julia captures an intimate, inspiring world of hope, youthful ambition and a deep commitment to reporting the truth in a country where government propaganda is one of Putin’s most powerful weapons of control. Bearing witness, first as the government brands news outlets, NGOs and individual journalists as foreign agents, and then through instances of arrest and imprisonment (including Ksenia’s fiancé), Julia finds herself filming as the clock strikes midnight on any semblance of freedom of the press in Russia. By the end of Part 1, all the film’s participants are forced to flee the country. Timing may be everything, but the story never ends. Part 2 on “The Exiles” is already underway.   Hidden Gems: Julia: “Four Daughters”, “July Rain” by Ksenia: “Holocaust: Is That Wallpaper Paste?”   Follow: @juliaofelbow and @my_undesirable_friends on Instagram @topdocspod on Instagram and X

When Liat Atzili and her husband Aviv were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas on October 7th, 2023, their families were not only devastated by the news but also at a loss of what to do next.  In Brandon and Lance Kramer’s (The First Step”) brilliant, nuanced and stirring documentary “Holding Liat,” each member of the family must decide what he or she can do to help bring Liat and Aviv home not knowing what impact their actions or words will have. At times, passionate and painful disagreements break out within the family.   The Kramer brothers — director Brandon and producer Lance — return to the pod to discuss the harrowing journey of the Atzili/Beinin family and the filmmakers’ own connection to the story. With the fates of Liat and Aviv unknown, father Yehuda, son Netta and sister Tal embark on a byzantine quest through the corridors of power in Washington, DC to tell their story and to persuade lawmakers to do something. As the family’s frustration builds, tensions boil over. After weeks of excruciating uncertainty, suddenly, news brings relief and joy to the family but also tragedy. Keeping us in its tight emotional grip throughout, “Holding Liat,” ultimately, is as much about letting go as it is about holding on.   “Holding Liat” will screen at Film Forum in New York City in January, followed by a planned multi-city U.S. domestic release.   Hidden Gems: Brandon: “Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment” Lance: “Nobody’s Business”   Follow: @brandonkramerfilm and lancekramer on Instagram and @brandon_kramer and @KramerLance on X @topdocspod on Instagram and X    The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

In Marshall Curry’s (“Street Fight,” “A Night at the Garden”) new Netflix documentary, “The New Yorker at 100”, the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, calls its very existence “a miracle”: in a typical issue you might find  a long profile of a museum, and then a report from Southern Lebanon, all interspersed with gag cartoons   Curry’s documentary reflects the variegated nature of its subject, revealing the process by which the magazine’s 100th anniversary edition is created while tracking the history of the magazine as it morphed from: a chiefly humor offering putatively aimed at the city’s upper crust; then embracing ground-breaking journalism first led by Jon Hersey, and later Rachel Carson and Truman Capote; to the celebrity-laden reign of Tina Brown; to Remnick’s politically-imbued editorial approach.  And throughout, as he notes both continuity and change, Curry pays homage to the people who make it all happen at such an elevated level:  the editors and writers, sure, but also the fact-checkers, cartoonists, designers, and even the employee who maintains the building and hides away the priceless archival material.   You can watch “The New Yorker at 100” on Netflix.   Hidden Gems: “Spellbound” “How to Die in Oregon”   Follow: @marshallcurry_ on Instagram and @marshallcurry on X @topdocspod on Instagram and X    The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

When Suuna Hassan and Madinah Babirah founded Masaka Kids Africana in the Masaka District of Uganda, they hoped to help a handful of orphaned children and other young people living on the streets. They had no way of knowing where their efforts would lead or that one day the whole world would be watching.   Directors David Vieira Lopez and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Moses Bwayo (“Bobi Wine: The People’s President”) join Ken on the pod to discuss this extraordinary organization, as well as the viral dance videos performed by the children of Masaka that caught the world’s attention during the pandemic. David, who was a volunteer at the organization at the time, and Moses, who is himself Ugandan, teamed up to tell the powerful story behind this Internet sensation. To their credit, the filmmakers are just as impressed with what Nabirah and Ian, and other children of Masaka, have to say, as with the dance steps that made these kids famous. In a place where HIV/AIDS has afflicted many thousands of people over the years and left many young people orphaned, Masaka Kids Africana is not just a symbol of hope but a vibrant community that is actively changing young people’s lives.   “Masaka Kids: A Rhythm Within” will be released on Netflix on December 9th.   Follow: @bwayomoses on Instagram and X  @masakakidsafricana on Instagram and @masakakids on X @topdocspod on Instagram and X    The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

Who really took the photo widely known as “Napalm Girl”?  And does it really matter over a half-century later?   In his new Netflix documentary “The Stringer”, Bao Nguyen (“The Greatest Night in Pop”) follows a journalistic team lead by Anglo-American Gary Knight as they seek to show that the real photographer on that day in 1972 in Trang Bang was not the renowned and fêted Pulitzer Prize-winning Nick Ut, of the Saigon AP Bureau, but a “stringer”, Nguyen Thanh Nghe, paid $20 flat and subsequently denied all credit.  And Nguyen argues as well that it does matter not only to Nghe and his family, but also to: the Vietnamese people; the Vietnamese diaspora (who had long lionized Ut); to an America that has still not fully dealt with the war; and to the very nature of truth in an era when technology can both clarify and complicate provenance.   You can stream “The Stringer” on Netflix.   Follow: @baomnguyen on Instagram and X @topdocspod on Instagram and X    The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.