Top Docs: Award-Winning Documentary Filmmakers

Michael Harte had never been a guest on Top Docs, but he’s been called out repeatedly by the likes of Davis Guggenheim (Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie and Deaf President Now!) and Fisher Stevens (Beckham) as one of the best editors working in documentaries today.  Now Michael finally joins Mike to discuss Kylie, his three-part Netflix series about the life, loves and creative growth of pop icon Kylie Minogue. Harte both directed and edited this project, which he likens to “being the prosecution and the defense at the same time.”

 

Harte explains how an unplanned morning at Kylie’s house, where he spotted a room full of archive boxes, unlocked the series’ structure and point of view. Mike and Michael trace Kylie’s path from Neighbours stardom to recording in London at 19. Harte describes his approach to interviews: he didn’t speak with contributors before filming, so Kylie’s ex-boyfriend Jason Donovan and producer Pete Waterman told their stories fresh and with real candor. 

 

The conversation then turns to the influence of INXS frontman Michael Hutchence, the uproar over her 1991 tour launch in Ireland, and her pivot toward indie credibility. Harte recalls being nervous before interviewing Nick Cave, who turned out to be playful and generous and helped carry the second episode, including the rarely seen footage of Kylie reciting “I Should Be So Lucky” at the 1997 Poetry Olympics. The final episode focuses on Kylie’s fight with cancer, the fan letters and family support that sustained her, and her determination to get back on stage.

 

Mentioned:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beckham-with-fisher-stevens/id1584498043?i=1000630859563

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/anatomy-of-a-scene-from-beckham-with-fisher-stevens/id1584498043?i=1000665986938

 

The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

 

Hidden Gem: The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

 

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In August of 2022, author Salman Rushdie, speaking onstage about how to protect writers at the venerable Chautauqua Institution in western New York, was attacked by a 24-year-old man with no prior criminal history who stabbed him 15 times, nearly killing him. Salman (“Midnight's Children”, “The Satanic Verses”, “Fury”, and “The Golden House”) and Rachel Eliza Griffiths (“Miracle Arrhythmia”, “Mule and Pear”, “Seeing the Body”, “The Flower Bearers”) join Mike to discuss “Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie,” Alex Gibney's documentary built from Rushdie's memoir of a similar name and the raw footage Griffiths began shooting in the trauma ward in the attack's immediate aftermath. 

 

Eliza, who served as cinematographer and executive producer, explains how filming began not as a movie but as a way to "take back a little power" and document recovery, using a professional camera a friend sent her rather than a phone. The two discuss Gibney's decision to withhold the actual attack footage until deep into the film, building tension the way Truman Capote structured “In Cold Blood”, and the striking device of restaging the memoir’s imaginary conversation between Salman and his assaulter using a scene from Kurosawa's “High and Low” with the attacker rendered mute and subtitled only. 

 

Salman reflects on grappling with the attacker's seemingly motiveless violence, the painful history of “The Satanic Verses”’s backlash within South Asian communities, and how the film's Kurosawa/Cat Stevens/Dylan-laced structure mirrors his own maximalist, allusion-driven imagination. Both guests explore the tension between public disclosure and private boundaries, noting the film reveals intense vulnerability while still preserving certain "no-fly zones." They also talk candidly about friendship and loss (Christopher Hitchens, Martin Amis, Paul Auster, Raymond Carver), Rushdie's recurring "through the looking glass" framework for the major relocations of his life, and the emotional return to the Chautauqua stage 13 months later that gave Rushdie an unexpected physical sense of a weight lifting. 

 

The conversation closes on what happiness and gratitude look like after coming close to death, with both Griffiths and Rushdie describing a hard-won, "wounded" but genuine joy toward the strangers who intervened to save Rushdie's life.

 

“Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie” opens at the IFC in New York on September 17th, followed by a North American-wide release later in the fall, and forthcoming rollout in the UK and Ireland.

 

The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

 

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“American Doctor, the searing new documentary by director Poh Si Teng (“St. Louis Superman”) about three American doctors who travel to Gaza to treat Palestinian victims of Israeli airstrikes, is bracing, in-your-face and graphic. In fact, in an early scene, one of the film’s main participants, Dr. Mark Perlmutter, insists that Poh show even the most gruesome images of Palestinian children killed by the bombs: “(American) taxpayers have the right to know the truth.” Poh relents and directs her cameraman to film the photographs.

 

Poh joins Ken on the pod to talk about that extraordinary moment and to shed light on the relationships and events at the center of her extraordinary film. For all the film’s urgency, however, Poh herself can reflect on her creative journey with humor, as well as pathos. For example, she recalls that when she first met the three physicians, she thought, “It’s almost like, ‘Three doctors walk into a bar.’ One is Palestinian Muslim... one is Jewish American, and one is Zoroastrian Parsi.” Perhaps it is a throwaway line, but upon further reflection, it is emblematic of the esprit de corps that unites these doctors and keeps them coming back to Gaza. That, and those gruesome images they can’t get out of their heads — and which audiences won’t be able to either.

 

“American Doctor” is being released theatrically by Watermelon Pictures.

 

Hidden Gems:

“Who Killed Olex Odeh?”

“Landscapes of Memory”

 

The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.

 

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Labor Day weekend is upon us, which means only one thing, well, actually three things: Venice, Telluride and TIFF. Bunched together in the first half of September are three of the biggest film festival highlights of the year. It also means world premieres of dozens of not to be missed documentaries. On the cusp of the 51st edition of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), which runs from September 10 – 20, TIFF’s lead documentary programmer Thom Powers (host of the Pure Nonfiction podcast), maestro of the festival’s documentary lineup for more than 20 years, returns to the pod.

 

Join us for this insider’s view of the TIFF documentary selections. As always, the lineup is a wonderful mix of docs from emerging filmmakers and seasoned veterans, featuring amazing stories from around the world. Thom also weighs in with a couple of picks from among the TIFF documentaries that may be in the thick of the Fall’s Oscar conversation.

 

The Presenting Sponsor of “Top Docs” is Netflix.

 

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It's that time of year:  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 78th Creative Arts Emmy Awards, including all the major doc categories, will be held on Saturday and Sunday,  September 5 & 6.

 

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.

 

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The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix.