It’s easy to glibly identify what’s happening as “Orwellian”: that we live in an era of “newspeak,” that we have reached the point at which the depths of the surveillance state of 1984 seems all too possible, maybe even already here. But in his new “Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5”, Raoul Peck (“I am Not Your Negro”, “Exterminate All the Brutes”, “Ernest Cole: Lost and Found”) digs much deeper into these possibilities, demonstrating how Orwell’s words resonated throughout the first half of the 20th century, only to become all that much relevant in our own day.
Drawing widely from Orwell’s corpus--not just the later novels, 1984 and Animal Farm but from earlier work and Orwell’s essays as well--Peck gives us a sense of a mind at work, seeking to bring together art and politics to reveal his world’s contradictions. And by fashioning as a spine to the film Orwell’s final months on the remote island of Jura as well as in sanitariums and hospitals and tuberculosis destroyed his lungs, all while striving to finish his final novel, 1984, Peck creates a sense of the mortal urgency facing Orwell then and us now.
“Orwell: 2 + 2 = 5” is now playing in theaters.
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The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.
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Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival 2025
It’s that time of the year! The Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival 2025 runs from October 10-18th. Ken, who, in addition to his Top Docs duties serves as the Executive Director of the Festival, joins Mike to talk about some of his picks for the Festival including:
“Lost Wolves of Yellowstone”
“The Cowboy”
“Move Ya Body: The Birth of House”
“Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud”
“The Perfect Neighbor”
“Welded Together”
“The Baloonists”
And… On October 12th at 2:30, Join Ken and Mike and director Joshua Seftel for a very special live Top Docs featuring Johua’s short, “All the Empty Rooms.”
For more info: https://hsdfi.org/
The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.
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"Predators" with David Osit
As director David Osit describes his new film, “ ’Predators’ peels back the story of the TV show ‘To Catch a Predator’, which ensnared potential sex predators in a television hidden-camera sting operation and explores the fallout from the show and the legacy of journalism as entertainment that it helped create.”
“Predators” (MTV Documentary Films) is now playing in select theaters, with more added every week.
Hidden Gem: Look into My Eyes.
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@dosit on Instagram and @davidosit on X/twitter
@predatorsfilm on Instagram
@topdocspod on Instagram and X/twitter
The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.
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Emmy Winner Matt Wolf: "Pee-wee as Himself" (Re-release)
In honor of Matt Wolf's big wins at the Emmys this year--not only for "Pee-wee as Himself" as Best Documentary Feature, but for his own win as director of that documentary as well as picture editing for Damian Rodriguez--we are re-releasing our interview with him at Sundance earlier this year.
As Director Matt Wolf shows in his insightful and fun 2-part HBO series “Pee-wee as Himself”, in Pee-wee, Paul Rubens found a persona that allowed him to both reveal and yet hide some core truths about who he was.
Fascinated with television and show business since he was a boy, Rubens combined elements of his childhood’s pop culture with the art world of Southern California in the 70s and early 80s to craft a character that would both conquer the then punkish milieu of Melrose Avenue as well as create a nationally televised children’s TV show. To achieve this, Wolfe delineates how Rubens deliberately foreclosed both his potential love life as well as cast aside long-held friendships. Wolfe’s series demonstrates both the costs as well as the benefits of outsized talent and ambition.
You can watch “Pee-wee as Himself” on HBO and HBO Max starting Friday, May 23rd.
Follow:
@mattpwolf on Instagram
@topdocspod on Instagram and X
The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.
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2025 Emmys Rundown with Scott Feinberg
It’s Primetime. Yes, the Primetime Emmys are here, and we’ve got you covered. Culminating our “Top Docs” podcasts featuring the leading contenders for in the documentary categories, we talk to The Hollywood Reporter’s Executive Editor of Awards Scott Feinberg who breaks down the 2025 Emmy nominees in all the major documentary categories, including Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special; Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series; Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking; and Outstanding Directing.
The 77th Creative Arts Emmy Awards, including all the major doc categories, will be held on September 6 - 7.
An award-winning columnist and podcast host (“Awards Chatter”), Executive Editor of Awards Scott Feinberg has led The Hollywood Reporter’s awards coverage since 2011. He is best known for his “Feinberg Forecast,” through which he assesses the standings of various showbiz awards races, and for Awards Chatter, the interview-centric podcast that he started in 2015.
Follow:
@scott_feinberg on Instagram
@topdocspod on Instagram and X/twitter
The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.
Listen to Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers, The Rest Is Entertainment and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app
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