Latest in Doc Talk

If Vladimir Putin was watching the Academy Awards on Sunday night from his dacha on the Black Sea, his mood may have been blackened by the Best Documentary Feature category. As Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast had predicted, the Oscar went to 20 Days in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov's harrowing film about the…

It's been a remarkable past year for Free Solo directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. At Telluride, they premiered their first narrative feature Nyad, a dramatization of the relentless pursuit of extreme athlete Diana Nyad to swim from Cuba to Florida without the safety of a shark cage. The…

When director Amber Fares came out with her documentary Speed Sisters, about the Middle East's first all-women race car driving team, the New York Times praised it as "unconventional in form as well as content." Many films about that part of the world have depicted Arab women cloaked in niqabs…

When the Oscar nominations were announced last month, it marked a watershed moment for the Documentary Feature category. All the nominated films focused on international subjects – stories from Uganda, Tunisia, Ukraine, India and Chile — and not a single American director was recognized. Two…

It's been a busy week for Oscar-nominated documentary filmmakers Maite Alberdi and Kaouther Ben Hania. On Monday, Alberdi, director of The Eternal Memory, and Ben Hania, director of Four Daughters, joined fellow nominees at the glittering Oscar Nominees Luncheon at the Beverly Hilton. Today, they sit…

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago this month, instinct told Ukrainian photojournalist and war correspondent Mstyslav Chernov to head to Mariupol, a strategically important city located on the along the Sea of Azov. His intuition proved correct. Within an hour of…

When the Oscar nominations came out last week, the Best Documentary Feature category contained some bombshells: no recognition for two of the most decorated nonfiction films of the year.  In the latest edition of Deadline's Doc Talk podcast, co-hosts John Ridley and Matt Carey drill down on the…

The Church of Satan would like to make it clear that members don't worship the Devil, nor do they believe Satan is real. What they do believe in, and the rituals they practice, emerge in the documentary Realm of Satan, which just premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.  Director Scott Cummings…

When the Oscar shortlist of feature documentaries was announced in December, it was dominated by films that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival – films like Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project, The Eternal Memory, Beyond Utopia and A Still Small Voice.  The shortlist announcement provided…

In a hidden corner of Los Angeles, a small group of people toil in obscurity, tending to broken pegs, stuck valves, clogged tubing and damaged keys – all to restore musical instruments to perfect working order for the city's public-school students.  These dedicated professionals are used to going…

The list of feature documentaries still in contention for the Oscars has been cut to 15 finalists, a brutal culling from a contingent of 167 qualifiers. The annual shortlist announcement leaves a handful of filmmakers celebrating, many more disappointed, and documentary watchers with much to…

John Legend and his partners at Get Lifted Film Co. are bringing some uplift to audiences with their inspiring new HBO documentary Stand Up & Shout: Songs From a Philly High School.  The film, now streaming on Max, explores an innovative music program at Hill-Freedman World Academy in Philadelphia…