Fog of Truth: A Podcast About Documentary Film

This episode is all about sports and athleticism documentaries. We review COMING TO MY SENSES which tells the story of Aaron Baker who was paralyzed in a motocross accident and is now trekking 20 miles across Death Valley and Chris interviews the director and subject of CHI-TOWN.

Depicting masters of their craft through documentary is the theme this week. In FILMWORKER, Leon Vitali spent his life working with Stanley Kubrick to develop and preserve a level of quality that Kubrick is known for to this day and in our interview Chris speaks with Sam Pollard, director of SAMMY DAVIS, JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME.

In this episode, we look at WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR through the lens of radical kindness and the context of social activism documentaries and Chris interviews the directors of RBG.

This week we met up in person at AFI DOCS in Washington DC to interview the directors of some of our favorite films from the festival, which we discussed in our previous bonus episode.

As we prepare to meet at AFI DOCS, we discuss the history of the Charles Guggenheim Symposium, this year honoring Steve James. We also review four films we have enjoyed so far from the lineup for which we will be interviewing the directors on location at the festival.

Bart gives us a brief history of interactive and transmedia documentary and we take a look at Life Underground, an immersive online documentary exploring subways and passengers in urban centers around the world. Also included is an interview between Chris and the creator, Hervé Cohen, from the 2018 SXSW Film Festival.

There seems to be no shortage of good doc series available to stream online. We take a look at the evolution of this format through early PBS observational series to today. We also discuss Dirty Money and Bart interviews the creators of Wild Wild Country.

Documentary films about artists and the process of creating and selling art is the topic this week as we each discuss some of our personal favorites and review LEANING INTO THE WIND. Bart and Chris also interview directors Tommy Pallotta and Femke Wolting about their new film MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN, which discusses developments in the field of artificial intelligence.

The growing number of documentaries shedding light on cases of police brutality and misconduct across the country is the theme this week as we review THE FORCE and Chris interviews Craig Atkinson, director of DO NOT RESIST.

It’s the week of the cat! We open by talking about internet cat videos, review KEDI (an observational film about cats in Istanbul) and Chris interviews the filmmakers of TROPHY.

This week we discuss all things environmental documentary: What makes an effective call to action film? Do environmental docs need to do that to make an impact? And, we review IN PURSUIT OF SILENCE plus Chris interviews the directors of AN INCONVENIENT SEQUEL.

In a very special on location episode, Chris and Bart interview four filmmakers at SXSW. Please visit our website for the video footage of these interviews: www.fogoftruth.com/video-extras

In preparation for SXSW, we have a brief discussion of the festival generally, how much we love the programming there, and take a closer look at four of the documentary features from the 2018 lineup.

Leading up to the Academy Awards, we talk Oscars and each pick our favorite feature and short documentary nominees as well as wildly speculate on which films will take home the trophy this year.

This week, we review ONE OF US, an observational film about three people in the process of leaving their Hasidic communities. Then, we all hop on the phone with Leah Warshawski director of BIG SONIA to talk about her filmmaking process and telling such a personal story.