We often treat images of pain and suffering as if they have some intrinsic meaning that'll be immediately obvious to everyone. This episode focuses less on finding meaning in images of pain, and more about the struggle to give them meaning. Filmmaker Alex Juhasz has to decide what to do with a tape she recorded of her best friend, Jim, as he was dying of AIDS. Then, in the border zone between Turkey and Syria in 2014, Transterra Media founder Jonathan Giesen receives hard-drives full of images shot by Syrian rebel groups and citizen journalists hoping to sell their footage. It’s here Giesen receives the first video clip of an ISIS public execution.   Featuring: Alexandra Juhasz, Stefan Tarnowski, and Jonathan Giesen

What Remains

The idea of a return to something is very dangerous to me, because it's the something that got us where we are today. – Christopher Harris    Who gets to decide what images mean, and why they have worth? For a documentary photograph to say something meaningful about the world, we have to believe that it's faithfully capturing that world. In this way, photography is a lot like another modern invention, paper money. In this episode, historian David McNally and filmmakers Christopher Harris and Jackie Goss talk about how the circulation of money and images influences what we trust, and who we mistrust.   Featuring: Christopher Harris, David McNally, and Jackie Goss

True Value

"You guys could do whatever you want after your presidency. Why did you decide to do this?" – Julia Reichert to Barack and Michelle Obama.    What does the US Democratic Party share in common with observational documentary? The promise and the problem of transparency. This episode explores the sixty-year long relationship between Direct Cinema and Democratic Party politics, from Robert Drew’s pioneering 1960 portrait of the Wisconsin Democratic presidential primary contest between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey, Primary, to Michelle and Barack Obama’s Higher Ground Productions and the Oscar winning documentary, American Factory. Featuring: Josiah McElheny, Joshua Glick, Julia Reichert, David Roediger, and Julia Lesage.

American Glass Factory

"The thing about finding consensus is that it depends on a shared reality." – Astra Taylor 

 Not too long ago, the phrase “my truth” would not only have meant very little to most people, but it would have sounded like the deepest of contradictions. But there are really good reasons why personal experience is just about the only thing a lot of people feel like they can really trust. In this episode, we hear from and about individuals and collectives whose mistrust of the banks, or the police, or even a particular pizza parlor in Washington D.C., compel them to take action. It’s about questioning some of the old places we are asked to have faith in,  and it’s about the struggle to build new ones … for better or worse. Featuring: John Akomfrah, Charlie Shackleton, and Astra Taylor

My Truth, Your Truth, Our Truth

"Blackness is a lie, but it’s a true lie." - RaMell Ross.
The boundaries between fiction and nonfiction have never been stable, neutral, or benign. What the work of photographer and filmmaker RaMell Ross, author and cultural historian Saidiya Hartman, and filmmaker Charles Burnett have in common is the belief that nonfiction media teaches how to see race, how to inhabit it, and how to police it. Can it also open up new ways to see differently? Featuring RaMell Ross, Saidiya Hartman, Charles Burnett, Terri Francis, and Ina Archer

The Freedom of Fiction

Sharing images with each other was supposed to make us feel more connected. Yet trust—in government, media, each other— is at an all time low, and to have faith in no one is to feel completely alone. That's where this series intervenes. Think of it like a relationship advice column. Except, instead of learning to be a better lover or a family member or a friend, this five-episode series is about becoming a better viewer - of images, yes, but also of the ways that images shape how we see and relate to each other. You'll hear from filmmakers, photographers, writers, activists, and even a broker for ISIS videos that were smuggled across the Syrian border, talking about how we are connected to and alienated from each other through images, and how they can help build new forms of trust, support, and solidarity.

Trust Issues

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An exploration of what documentary is, and what it might become. 

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