231: Docs from Five Countries

[Music] If you enjoy this podcast, look out for my new book, "Mondo Documentary," the compiled short essays on hundreds of documentary films. Judd Aptow says it's required reading for anyone who loves nonfiction cinema. It's not on Amazon, but you can order it anywhere in the world from purenonfiction.net. [Music] On this episode, we travel the world from Hollywood to Gaza to Vietnam to Argentina and Bolivia in five documentaries eligible for the Oscars. [Music] I'm Tom Powers and this is purenonfiction. The clock is ticking for Academy members to watch all their assigned films before the first round of shortlist voting begins on December 8th. This month, I recorded interviews with the teams behind five of the eligible documentaries in partnership with the Anclerc. Now we're pleased to share those conversations here. In this eclectic mix, we'll hear about Jane Mann's field, about the Gaza photographer Fatma Hasuna, about a Vietnamese man seeking out his American father, about an Argentinian mother who became an activist, and about a massive lake in Bolivia that disappeared. So let's get into it. Our first project is my mom Jane. The director is Marish Gahargate, the actress best known for playing detective Olivia Benson on law and order. In my mom Jane, she's doing detective work on her own family, specifically her mother Jane Mann's field. Marish Gahargate was just three years old when her mom died. In the film, she digs into family secrets for a deeply emotional journey. I spoke to Marish Gahargate along with her producer, Trisha Adlessek, and editor, J.D. Marlow. Let's hear that conversation. Marish Gahargate, let me begin with you. Can you elaborate on how you were at a distance from this story for so many years in understanding the life of your mom? I think I always had an extremely complex relationship with her, not understanding some of the choices that she made and only seeing this very sort of presentational side of her. The idea of her being a sex symbol and sort of presenting herself to the world with that sex kitten voice was always just painful to me because it wasn't balanced with that quiet connection and attachment and knowing. I never got, I never remember because she died when I was so young having that intimacy. As I grew up, sort of not knowing what to do with the image of it all. So as I understand it, it was the pandemic that gave you some time to slow down and think about this. So once you began digging in, what was that emotional journey like? Well, it's really been a lifelong journey because during the pandemic is when I had time to literally sort of open the boxes of her life. And I had been throughout my life. And certainly the last 30 years been receiving letters and notes from people who shared so many pieces of her and I would sort of push it all away and had really sort of cut her out of my life in that way. So it was a time when I started getting very curious about her. And as these, as I started to open the boxes and get these pieces of her back, my curiosity increased and after becoming a mother and after understanding more the complexity of her. And even seeing a photo, I remember seeing one of the photos that sort of sparked this journey was seeing this private moment of hers. And it was a different expression on her face. And so a lot of the impetus was to find the woman behind the post, to find what made her tick, who was she, what made her happy, what made her sad, what was she looking for? And really understand the choices. And as I began to open these letters and one of the most compelling things was when somebody shared a story, somebody who played the violin with her and they shared the story of going and sitting outside her house and listening to her play the piano, play the violin and and seeing her as a musical artist was something that's why I say in the film, it was almost that artistry that made me even more curious than her acting because in the footage, in the in the archival, that's when I got to see this quiet, focused artist. I saw into her soul instead of this presentational part of her that I'd been confronted with. So Trish is the producer on this film. You've worked with Marish on a number of different projects over the years. This one, what had entirely different, deep, personal story to it. Tell me about what you saw in Marishka in being able to dive into this. Well, as I may have shared in the past, I've known Mershka for 27 years. And she would sometimes talk about her mom, but not that often. And she would share with me the shame that she just expressed in her comment about Jane being a sex symbol. And I think she deep down inside really wanted to know more, but she needed time to get there. And after I am evidence, a number of folks asked her, will you tell the story of your mother? And in 2022, she came to me and she said, I'm ready. And I know what she meant. And while I was elated, I was also feeling protective and wanting to really support her with this deeply personal story and really explore how best to go about telling it. And her, you know, being the director and the protect and misleading the story and the balance of all of that. But it was very clear early on that she was so ready, her courage, her just intention to go deeply and to look at all the layers of her family and to really share with the world the opportunity for an invitation to really look at their own families. You know, when relationships break down, how do we come back together and find inner peace and maybe find resolution with that relationship. So I think it was really evident to me that she was so excited to do it. And it was a real shift from where she had been in the past. So it was just the perfect timing because she felt in her own heart that she was ready to do it after spending the time during the pandemic, looking into Jane's letters and looking at all the I.K.E.V., I think she really got clarity there. JD as the editor of this film, you bring a background of working on documentaries about Stefan Curry and Norman Lear and a wide range of different subjects. My mom Jane has many different layers to it. There's things that had happened in the past. There are things that are unfolding in the present. What was the first challenge of finding the structure to this film? That's a great question. It's part of what was exciting about this to me honestly. I mean, we've talked about, and I think Marishka is very proud of the fact that I hadn't done something like this before. And it's a testament to you because that would scare a lot of people away. But I think in some ways none of us had done this kind of thing before. But it was exciting because I think once we had one of our initial meetings and you verbally told me what the story was, I had this sort of amazing aha. You blew me away with what it was, but also I had my wheels spinning about what it could be. And I was in at that point. So I think in terms of discovering the structure, I've described it as sort of a biography with a wrap around it, with a personal essay around it. And I think that that was a good way of approaching it, even though we didn't have it all figured out from the beginning. There was a process of discovery. But I think just having that sort of anchor of like, hey, don't get lost in it being a biography because this is a personal intimate thing that's reflecting back and that that is the sort of other side of this story. So it was not easy, but I'm super proud of what we came up with. Bruce, I'd love to hear about how you worked with collaborators like Trish and JD. This story is so personal to you, but you probably need other people to help give you perspective on it. No, I didn't need anyone I could have done it myself. Thomas, a great question. I'll tell you this, it gets me excited that question because I'm a very, I would say, instinctual person. And as JD said, we met, I met with a few editors and when I met with Jay. Tell me it just went with me, no, no, but I knew that I wanted to editorially marry you when I met you. I was done. But when I met JD, it was really so intuitive. So the team was, I feel in so many ways, to finally let as Trish said, Trish and I have known each other for a very long time. There's a lot of trust there. Her work speaks for itself. I know what she's done. I made a movie with her. So that was, that was done. That was a lock. And the editing was the most important thing. And so the conversation that JD and I had, I could see his his brain going. And then he asked me, do I have archival? And I was like, sweetheart, do I have archival? And that's what also, you know, as JD's mind was going, it was so again, intuitive and instinctual. And I even though he said he'd never done anything like this, I felt intuitively that he understood the story. I could feel it on the first day. And I just knew that my gut was right. And I think the gift of this, and the way I look at collaborating is, I love it. I've been doing it, you know, for 27 years on SVU, you know, making a little movie every week. And so I really appreciate what I am and what I'm not. And I appreciate that all of us are specialists. And Trish's expertise and JD's expertise were like a magical trilogy because I knew what I wanted. I knew that I was fearless and not afraid to be vulnerable in the storytelling and want it and really wanted to do that. I think the two of them knew that. So they were like, I'm in. If we're going to go there, let's do it. And then the the the craftsmanship and how how thoughtful everyone was and how thoughtful JD was with putting so many of the pieces together, the timeline was extraordinarily challenging for all of us. And we circle that a lot, that wagon because of the nature of the story. You know, originally I had thought that it was going to be a three-parter because of that, you know, it's a first, it's a biography, let's get into a history, then let's get into a biography. And then it's the third story. It's the third act, which is truly a left turn, but to marry the third act, to marry my story with the beginning was was quite challenging and took a lot of thought and a lot of brain power. And it was extraordinary to work with both of these people. And you know, JD and I, it was really exciting too because we are so different. And then there was this third thing that happened. And so we would talk about the third thing, like JD would, you know, show me something amazing. And then I would go, like, okay, well, what if we did this or could we do that? And I'm thinking out loud, not even knowing what's fully possible. And then the third thing would happen. And then JD subtly would say, I don't hate it. But it was very, it was really fun that way because I would be like so excited. And I love it. And my god, this is really it. And JD's like, I could see it working. It was fun. Alan's the two is, yeah, there's something. The three of us were also different, but I will say that we, you know, turned over every stone. And there were some big obstacles. Structurally, again, as I said, that we had to circle the wagon, the idea that we're dealing with such a huge secret, right, that we can't go in chronological order. So I think that was, if I may, I think, I think that was really masterfully done. And I was just so grateful for again, the, I kept calling JD a surgeon. And, and I thought, I just, I'm just so happy with where it came. And I'm so grateful for the team. And I just couldn't imagine with it with anyone else. Because again, the different perspectives were so helpful. And I just am a person as a, as an artist in any medium, I believe in the best idea wins period. Trish, I'm, Ryska talked about the power of archival footage in this project. There's, you know, there's a treasure trove to be sure. What, is, was there anything that you came across in this process that, you know, especially took your breath away or really felt like it was going to help tell a part of the story that, that you were struggling with before? There were a lot of turns, you know, with the archival. We had hired a really remarkably talented archival producer, Lindsey Schneider, who really went to the moon and back and got us everything she possibly could. So we were exploring lots of different things. I think one of the notable things was the way in which JD split up a piece of the footage to bring us back to a moment that was so telling on the turn of events with Nelson. And that was one of the genius moves with it. I was really elated and excited to see that. But I think, you know, some of the latter parts of Jane's life, you know, there were moments where, you know, she was doing the microbes. But I think in particular one moment that really stood out for me in the archival was when Jane, we saw the dedication Jane had to veterans. And I felt such a strong connection to her volunteering with the veterans. And there was a piece from the 1960s when she went to Vietnam. And she spoke with such, such reverence. I think she gets choked up in the clips and the film about how they were so committed to ending the war and fighting the war. And they really, you know, moved her. And I thought that was really important for us to show that side of Jane, the side that wasn't the movie star, sex symbol that was the humanitarian activist that really put her heart and soul into wanting to give back, you know. And I think that was really important to me. My mother was a, you know, an RN for the Veterans Administration. So I felt a can, a can ship with Jane and Merchka about that. So things like that were really illuminating when we saw her out there with Bob Hope and out there in the trenches during the war. And just really giving back and doing a lot of things like that. I think that was very moving to see. Merchka, so many people know you from your work on while in order. But as it's been mentioned, you know, earlier in this conversation, you did this previous documentary. I am evidence you and Trish got behind a new documentary coming out called NUNS versus the Vatican. This, my mom Jane is not a one off experience for you in documentary film. And I wonder if you can talk about what excites you about the the form of documentary. I just love the healing power of storytelling. I love how the forum can connect us to our own humanity and immediately put us in community. So many people who are experiencing trauma, whatever kind it is, feel isolated. And many times experience shame. And I think that this form of storytelling can break through that because the first thing you feel is that you're not alone. And so with I am evidence, we were dealing with the backlog of untested rate kits and victims of sexual assault and domestic violence who were basically thrown away, ignored and told and acted upon as if they did not matter. And so, you know, we say there's a line where their body is the crime scene in I am evidence. In NUNS versus the Vatican, it's the same thing. It's about NUNS being abused in the Catholic church. And again, people that don't have a voice and have given their life to God and then are abused and don't feel that they can come forward. So in my work, with my foundation and joyful heart and what I've learned about healing in my life is the way to heal is having somebody bear witness and the way to heal is through telling your story and opening up the crack so that light can come in. And so in this film what inspired me so much is the idea of the only way out is through we all have a family we all have a story we all have family secrets and we all carry so much and so I know that people like have projected on me because I played this character on TV and people see me a certain way and nobody knew what I carried or how fractured I was inside and so through my healing and through storytelling and through the themes of this movie I've I feel like a different person and one of the profound things for me is the way the movie is resonated with people and how much people have shared with me they have a similar story and it's been mind-blowing really to hear that but again we all have stories and we all have secrets and so this idea for me of of leaning into the sharp edges with this sort of disciplined curiosity which is what I tried to maintain throughout this process is you know when people are scared to move for close to pain close to the unspoken there's so much beauty that can come from that and freedom and liberation and I've seen it over and over with with other people I've seen it through myself I've seen it and so that's the part that I wanted to share and it's just a way to connect so intimately with people and they can experience documentary alone and privately and safely that was Mariska Hargote for new film is my mom Jane our next film is called put your soul on your hand and walk the director sepide far see grew up in Iran and was jailed for her activism as a teenager two years ago she wanted to cover the war in Gaza but outside journalists couldn't get in instead she made a connection by video calls with a Gaza photo journalist named Fatma Hassuna known by her friends as Fatem the film covers their friendship over the course of a year Fatma frequently has a poetic way of speaking the film's title comes from her description of living under bombardment here's my conversation with the director sepide I want to go back to when this film began in 2023 you just released your animated film the siren that played the Berlin Film Festival and you were touring with that film and that was the year when war broke out in Gaza so what were you feeling at the time what was calling out to you about this dramatic historical event that made you want to cover it as a filmmaker I wanted to add another event to this whole political landscape or personal landscape there is also in 2022 the woman life freedom movement and so I kind of shift from where I was very active like many Iranians and it was an internal war also and we experienced silencing from the regime from the Iranian regime on the apprisings killing people and not letting news come out so this was very key also in what happened later on so and then 2023 I was touring around the world with the siren as you mentioned and then when the October 700 attacks happened I was precisely in a festival which is called war on screen if you can't believe it the coincidence in France and we were watching films about war and the siren was shown also I was a jury member as well and so this was a very hectic moment of course to react to the whole tragedy first of all and then I could kind of unfortunately expect that the spectrum of the response would be much higher and but it was even higher than anybody what anybody could have expected so as I was traveling I saw events unfolding and the media not relating correctly in my opinion to it and the Palestinian part always being absent I nobody was talking to them nobody was asking them questions they were the stories from the Palestinian journalists were questioned were kind of you know put under between quotes and and this bothered me immensely as an Iranian as I said also after the events of 2022 and earlier ones in Iran when the written I know this process of silencing the events so I couldn't go on functioning normally and that's how I started went to Gaza to Cairo in order to go to Gaza which didn't happen and the film started there so your next intention after you realize you couldn't go to Gaza was to try to reach out to people who were in Gaza and see if you could cover them that way and I think the if I'm not mistaken the first person you wound up talking to was Fahba and you've described that you knew right away this was the person who was gonna be a great storyteller for you so what stood out to you about Fahba? her light I would say a combination of fragileness but and force something very determined in her way of looking at the world and her determination in documenting the events the war and the genocide and the occupation despite her young age she was only 24 when I met her and it was as though she had decades of experience the way she was describing what she wanted to do you know no matter what and this really and and and the first phrases you know within the first minutes of us having met she I asked her a question what does it mean for you to be a Palestinian in Gaza today and she says I'm proud this is one thing I take it in you know it's very strong and that's the phrase that comes out immediately she doesn't think about it it just comes out and then she says they cannot defeat us because we have nothing to lose that's the other phrase after that and they are very very strong assertive but also very personal ways of putting things this was what really struck me at the beginning early in your career maybe 15 years ago or more you made a film called Tehran without permission where you were also kind of working within limitations of what you could do visually because you were filming in Iran as the title goes without permission I wonder what you've learned over the years from that film and from this new film about you're trusting the power of an image even if it isn't perfectly crafted cinematic image I think there's something within the image especially in the case of documentaries but also in fiction nonfiction specifically but also nonfiction fiction I fictional images I would say which I call the truth of the image and it's a very abstract concept I know that but what how I describe it and how I feel it it's really related to your feeling as a filmmaker I think that a low key image if it's true it's much more powerful than a very high end made image which is not which doesn't have that truth which I'm talking about and and this is what was exactly happening when I made Tehran without permission between the two there was another film which is a a fiction fictional piece called Red Rose but where I also use archival image from the appraisings in 2009 and again I use the internet images rather than remaking them reshooting them because I thought that those were the exact images I needed they were very low quality but we worked on them we enhanced them and I preferred using them in the film rather than remaking them so between you and Fatma there's all kinds of different divides there's an age divide there's a divide in your experiences but what do you think were the points that were that that bondage the two of you which we we can see on the screen that you know a real chemistry between you but but I wonder how you think of it um I think it was partially because of our mutual experiences of who she was at that moment what she was going through and what I had been through at a younger age she much younger you know I had experienced being in Jail and Iran and being blocked in Iran for years and not been able to leave my country before I did eventually at the age of 18 so I know what it means to be blocked you know and it's uh you never forget that I know the feeling feeling and it stays with you even though it's more than 30 years or actually 40 years ago, but it stays with me. So when I saw her and I think she felt that, that makes that bonding so immediate and so deep. And of course the image also, I started with photography and she was a photographer. So obviously there was a lot that we shared. Can you talk about her photography, what you were seeing through her eyes that maybe weren't seeing elsewhere? She had a very particular way of looking at the Gaza landscape, her homeland I would say. Several things. One, she always took photos where people look dignified. You never felt misery in her photos. Even when Palestinians were standing in front of the ruins of their houses or had nothing next to nothing or just carrying a bag of food, they always look dignified. And this is very, and she never was into voyeurism when she took photography. It was always a very distanced, but yet the right distance with the subject. And the rigor, the rigor she had, like series of tens and several tens of dozens of photos about facades about children, she would do series, like professional photographers do, like real artists do. And the other thing was that her ability to find beauty within the disaster, there would be these immense rows of houses destroyed all in rubble, and then there would be a patch of red, you know? And then your eye would be caught to that patch of color in that whole grayish landscape. This is very particular. I've never seen it in other Palestinian photographers recently at least. I mean, one of the things that comes through in your conversations is this disparity of experience. You're in Europe with all the comforts of not living wartime, and she's living under bombardment. And, you know, it's a, it's something that all of us feel disconnected by when we're looking at people less fortunate or, you know, watching news coverage of something horrible going on and feeling of helplessness. But I wonder how you, you know, came to process that disparity. I couldn't process it, you know? But that was the way it was. I had to do with it. I had to cope without being able to change it, without being able to process it exactly, because it was unfair. I couldn't do anything about it. I felt bad about it, but that was all I could do. If I would rely on my feeling bad about being in a comfortable life traveling around the world in a peaceful place, I would have stopped shooting the film. That would have been the end of it. And I think at that moment, the only thing I told myself was, I'd rather do this rather than not do this, because we need it. This is how I cooked with it. But of course, I was aware of it. Well, when it came to editing the piece, like lots of films, when you see it all come together, it feels like, oh, this is perfectly natural. She edited a sequence in chronological order of these conversations. But what were some of the things that you faced as challenges in the editing? It wasn't that easy. I think sometimes doing something that looks very simple is harder than more sophisticated things. More is less and less is more. It is true. So, one of the challenges was to make it the choice, because I had, I don't know how many hours, I mean, 60, 80 hours of conversations, and the film couldn't be more than this, you know, longer than this. Perhaps it could have been a bit, but not that much. So the challenge was to choose not the best, but the strongest in terms of emotion and what they were conveying, because the conversations were quite similar also, you know? It is so, so how are you doing? And what did you eat? How's the landscape? It's always the same, not exactly the same questions, but some of the questions were recurrent. Yet, it's always different. And I needed to do this thing of, it's like a diary, you know, and you always write similar things, but it's always different. And I needed to build that, banality in a very original way, if I may put it, you know, so that and build an emotional arc with her, and also not lose my energy, because you can imagine that I was for that year, for the good of that year, ready always to shoot, always, no matter when or what, as soon as she sent me a message, and then I would shoot, and then I would stop, take a rest, and start editing. And these are different energies. And I didn't, I mean, then I needed to kind of, it was a bit of a Dr. J. Kim, Mr. Hyde saying, you know, because I needed to put myself in the editors' place, who is the person who judges that we have to throw this away, you have to cut this, which is not the director and camera person, you know? And actor also, actor in the sense protagonist, because I was also in the image. So it was a very chaotic, yeah, mindscape that I had, and I wanted to add something regarding your last question, your previous question, what I thought also was necessary, important, was that I needed to be sincere, vis-à-vis fatten. I needed her to know where I was, I needed her to know how I lived. I didn't want to pretend being in a difficult situation or, you know, hiding things from her. That was very important, the honesty, and our exchanges also. So you've finished the film earlier this year. It got accepted into the Cam Film Festival's ASEED section. We see the end of the film. You convey this news to Fatma. And many people will know that the day after the film was announced for Cannes, there was an air strike targeted at her home and she was killed along with several members of her family. So that was roughly six months ago. How have you been, you know, processing the last six months of taking this film on the road, introducing her to audiences, and, you know, experiencing whatever process of grief you're going through? It's hard to look back and to take distance because I'm very much in it still. You know, many of the festivals I've been to, there are many more coming, many I cannot even go to and every day I do presentations and all. So again, it's this schizophrenic moment where I'm very close and yet more and more distant in time, but still very close. Every time I watched the film yesterday in San Francisco when the screen was going on and doc stories and she's there immediately. She's alive. And then the film ends and she's gone. And it's so strange. It's such a contradictory movement and the war hasn't ended, the genocide hasn't ended. It's still ongoing. That is the worst part of it because I thought when this happened that this film would be a shift making film and it has been impactful, but not as much as I wanted. And no film can be, of course, it would be pretentious to think that one film can change the face of the history. It never happens. I know that. But still I was thinking perhaps this tragedy, what happened to her and the way it was immediately shown out to the world could perhaps make a difference and it did, but not exactly as I expected. And so it is a very frustrating thing and I haven't had time for grief. I have no time for grief. I have to go around with her legacy and her words and keep doing this. That was Sepede Farsi discussing put your soul on your hand and walk. The next film is Child of Dust. The backdrop to this story is the war in Vietnam in the 1960s and 70s. There were over 100,000 children, fathered by American soldiers. with Vietnamese women. The film follows a man named Sang, who was born with his mixed parentage in the late 1960s. He grew up in Vietnam, never knowing his father, until we finally see him make a connection through DNA testing. The Polish filmmaker, Veronica Milituska, follows Sang's journey in true observational style, having no idea where it would lead. I spoke to her along with the film's producer Ba Wen. Here's our conversation. Veronica, I understand you have a background in anthropology. You've done writing and film projects in Central America, in Japan, and India. So what drew you to Vietnam and this topic? For me, it was a very, like, I was just following my intuition. And to be honest, the first thing that was very interesting for me was the fact that in Vietnam, the father figure is so important. And father figure gives you identity. Let alone the Vietnam War gives context when the father is absent. So for me, in the beginning, it was a, it would drew me with the story about fathers that are absent. But with time, I understood that this took me into so many different places that I didn't even think about. So Ba, what drew you to this project in Veronica's approach as a producer? Yeah, for me, you know, you mentioned her background. And I saw, you know, some of the early footage of the film. And just, it was just very intimate and direct and cinematic, to be honest, I think Veronica has a way to touch the story that's very nuanced and not sort of overly sentimental. I think I've seen a lot of these type of stories, you know, as a Vietnamese American, you know, consumed and made a lot of films about Vietnam. Tell the story of these communities who have been neglected, you know, children of American servicemen and Western servicemen. And so when I saw Veronica's approach, it was something I was refreshing, which, and surprising, to be honest, so that what really drew me to Veronica's vision. So Veronica, you started off kind of wanting to explore this topic. Then how did you land on following the character that you did? To be honest, I was waiting for him for a long time. I wanted to find somebody who doesn't want to go to the US. And that was for sure for me. I needed, I wanted to find somebody who's in his heart really following the urge to meet his father and heal his past. So I was sure it needs to be something about healing the past, healing the childhood trauma and seeking reconciliation beyond any political judgments or anything like that. I wanted to find somebody who is spiritual and who's going to take us into places that we would not expect. So I didn't want to make this film with all of a set goal or anything, but I wanted to go on the journey. And I for sure wanted to be, for this person to lead us into places of reconciliation. So I was waiting for him for like three years. I was in touch with NGO that is driven by passion because there's one man in Denmark who for the past 30 years was smuggling DNA tests because actually sending DNA tests to outside of Vietnam is illegal. And so he was doing that for the past 30 years. He has a different job and his name is Brian. And he was helping Amar Asians just because once he was a backpacker, they saved his life like he got him out of trouble. And whenever he got the DNA much between the father that he was searching for and the Amar Asian person, he would let me know. And when I met Sang, I just knew that this is him. I could not look back. I didn't film other people. I just trusted that this story will take us somewhere. By Veronica mentioned before that there's this added dimension that kind of comes through in the film in Vietnamese culture of the figure of the father and the importance. I mean, it's obviously universal experience to want to reconnect with a missing parent. But we kind of understand the film that it's even heightened in this sense. And I wonder if you can elaborate on that. Yeah, well, I think as you said, it is a universal part of many different cultures. But I think Vietnamese culture, especially the father-son relationship is especially important. Just the idea that the male side will take care of the family. And so the father has always looked as obviously the caretaker in many ways. And especially during the Vietnam War, it was a time where these patriarchal values were tested. And I think Sang, as masculinity is something interesting in Vietnam where if you can't take care of your family, then you're not seen as masculine in many ways. And so the ability of saying not to have a relationship with his father and the beginning and then seek out his father, I think it's him also seeking out a figure of masculinity that maybe was absent in his life. So Veronica, you described wanting to take this journey and you do it in a true observational style when you start out with saying there's no telling where this is going to go. He has a desire to reunite with the father he has never met before in the United States. But when you're along on this journey, you don't know if he's going to get the permission to do that. You don't know if he's going to have the willpower to carry through with that. You don't know how he's going to be received. If he gets there, all these are things that are revealed to us along the way of this journey. And I want to understand how you had the patience or the faith in the story that you appear to follow for months and months that it was going to yield something for you. Yeah, for us, the whole process took eight years and it was a very bumpy ride on every level, production level because, you know, for people to believe in this story, especially as you mentioned, I'm from Poland, but for me, this has always been a very universal story and for me, I always studied abroad. I consider myself like a citizen of the world, you know, and then at some point you ask yourself, where do you belong? What is actually shaping your belonging? And for me, Sang was always asking these questions and that's why this story was always a search. And at some point, when he was about to leave to the US and about to actually leave his family in Vietnam behind because that was the price he had to pay. That was he could not get a travel visa. That was the only way to meet his father and fulfill his life long dream. And I, for the translator for my assistant director's assistant, I said to her, please, can you repeat to him? Because we said it for so many times, but please repeat that maybe on the other side is not going to be the grass is not greener and maybe he's not going to find happiness and belonging and like whatever that is, please remind him, it's going to be very hard. And then he said, like, look, I have to do it. This is something I've been dreaming for all of my life. And, you know, for me, I just became his friend. I think I became his best friend and a company for all this like a very journey full of twists and turns because and to be honest, there was no more for me, any kind of like, oh, I'm a filmmaker here or I'm like, these roles were just like tied down to just be his friend at the end of the day. But at the same time, I had to keep this very this line that I will never interfere in his life. I'll never try to change the course of action. And that was very important for me as a filmmaker that I will never interact in this way. Can you elaborate on that and describe a time where you're going to be? you really felt that tested and how you dealt with it? - When he arrives in the US and he feels very lonely and unhappy and these are the moments when when I see the cultural clashes are really difficult for him and the idea of the family is so different in the US than he had in mind. So for me, you know, the only thing I could do like after switching off the camera would to hold him and give him a hug, you know, but I didn't want to, like I didn't want to really interfere in the way like whether he goes back to Vietnam or whether he wants to, you know, any decisions that he would make. So I think my role was to just accompany him and support emotionally, but whatever the decision he had in his life was taken by himself. Right, you know what, it was heartbreaking. It was heartbreaking to actually watch the whole process, but as a filmmaker, I think we have to also trust that the difficulties that there are, they open more doors and that the difficult process that protagonists going through may actually result in something positive. And I think at the end of the day, for saying, the positive side is that because of this difficult cultural assimilation when he comes to the US, then he's more prone to healing from his past. And at the end of the day, he's free from the past. So he's now free to take any decision and move forward in life. And that was actually what he was seeking for. About there's a long history of coverage of Vietnam by outsiders with a very mixed history, some of it misleading, some of it imposing, you know, an outside perspective. So how do you think about that in joining forces with Veronica as an outsider to this culture? - Yeah, I think oftentimes people might approach me as sort of as like a token producer, to be honest, as you know, someone who, okay, if I'll get a Vietnamese producer, then I'm sort of covering my bases. But, you know, I found Veronica to be very engaged and empowering to the Vietnamese perspective. And I think, you know, it's all about like finding these moments of solidarity and understanding that, someone from the outside can tell the story. It's about including people from the inside, obviously, and never like, not including them. I remember a filmmaker friend of mine said something really beautiful that I've always carried with me, you know, she's a prominent filmmaker who will come into like outside communities and observe and film and make films. And she said that sometimes it takes someone from the outside to see the beauty that, you know, someone from the inside is sort of taken for granted for a long time. And I think that is true when you're living this moment or you're second certain habit of life and rhythm of life, you might not take the opportunity to stop and look around and see where the beauty is and see where the trauma and the heartbreak. And all these things that I think if you can look at it with the with the humanistic and empathetic lens, and I think that's the best approach. And I think Veronica has approached this film with that same attitude. This film would never happen without her Vietnamese producer who is also a good friend of Bao Chi Minh, Delayol, like who has been on this project since day one. We were like doing research together and from the very beginning and then he totally believed in this. And then this film would not happen without the help of his team of amazing crew, of filmmakers who are supporting us and of people who are not only translating the language but also translating the culture every day. And we had endless conversations about it. And this is the only reason why I would dare to actually tell the story through Sang's eyes, through his perspective. Because I felt that this is a unique perspective that needs to be heard, that this voice needs to be out there and he trusted me with all of the most intimate moments that he invited me to with no borders really. There are so many very emotional and moments that he really trusted us with. But it's thanks to the Vietnamese team and thanks to the fact that I think that we really got under the skin to understand how he perceives the world, how he orders important for him. And I think it's like a teamwork, it's a collaboration. And thank you, Bao, for trusting us as well. Bao, I wonder if there's a scene in the film that stands out to you as having captured something special. I mean, I think the scene we're saying first arrives to America is like that moment, you know, you're anticipating it for the entire film and when that moment comes and there's an imperfection, you know, you're expecting it to be sort of this moment where they just find each other and they embrace at the airport, but there's like that unease intention that I think is so honest to documentaries that you can never cheat the head. And so I thought that was such a powerful moment to the film for me personally. Veronica, as I wrap this up, now that the film has been making it out into the world and reaching audiences, what is that meant for saying and to his American family to know that their story is being told? Yeah, we just very recently we went together to Chicago International Film Festival where the film was in the competition and I would watch the film together on the big screen with Sang and we would hold hands and he would cry so much and I would like by observing how he is reacting to the film just sitting next to him. I was like very happy that it really portrays his soul, that it really shows how he feels and I think the whole process really empowered him and that just facing the audience, seeing how they react to the film as well was just like wrapping the story for him that he made it, he made his dream come true and now he's reestablishing his whole identity because searching for the father is actually searching for himself as well. And this is the moment when he's voices out there and he's totally empowered but he had the courage to do it and that's a beautiful thing to observe. That was Veronica Mollicuska, discussing her film, "Child of Dust". Our next film is Norita. It profiles the Argentinian activist Nora Cortinias. She didn't start out as a political person but that changed in the 1970s when the military regime took power, kidnapping and disappearing 30,000 citizens including Nora's son. She joined other mothers in a grassroots protest movement that helped topple the government. Over the decades she rallied for other political causes including LGBTQ rights and abortion rights. The film traces her legacy. I spoke with the Australian co-director, Jason McNamara and his American producer, Sarah Schollkopf, let's go to that conversation. Jason, let me start with you. This history is rooted in the 1970s and early 80s in Argentina, but you're young for that period. So what did this period mean to you? I was working as a journalist in Argentina for several years before I started in Norita. So I had dabbled a little bit in the activist scene and I was really blown away by how an older woman could be held up in a really young community as not just sort of an icon or a symbol but an active part of the movement. A young person who young people would consult and look to for real practical advice in terms of how to create and sustain a movement. It was all very retrospective and I think eventually you start to look inward and understand some similarities. I'm from a working class background in Australia and a lot of the political, disquiet and unease in the 1970s have a look. to do with class. So inevitably you start to make connections and you find yourself in the story in some way. And I think that was important because Noreta took a lot of convincing. She had to understand who we were and it was through being able to tell her my story that she eventually agreed to trust me with hers. - So before I go get to Sarah, Jason, maybe explain to me where Noreta fits in this movement. I mean, there was a mass movement of women who were challenging the Argentinian government over their missing children. So what made Noreta stand out in that movement? - So by the time I came to the story with a lot of unanswered questions as a foreigner, you don't grow up with this. I moved to Argentina in 2013. So I was sort of chasing my tail a lot and trying to understand how this work, how this movement of mostly suburban housewives were able to create a horizontally organized, pacifist resistance movement from essentially nothing, from having no political experience at all, aside from sort of watching their children become political in universities or work environments in the 1970s. I think with Noreta, the thing that really stood out and many was that she was operating well outside the scope of the historical cause which was truth and justice for the disappeared. She was involved when I met her in indigenous land rights in the LGBTQ movement in the fight against sovereign debt, you know, the sovereign debt crisis in Argentina, engaging with economists and, you know, just this really broad sort of almost seemingly limitless scope of causes and she really came across or stood out from the rest of the mothers as a fully formed, complete activist and aside from that, just incredibly charming, very funny, very flirtatious, just a genuinely dynamic, interesting person sort of made for cinema, I would say. So Sarah is the producer. What was it about the story that attracted you? So I actually knew Nora for nearly three decades. I did an internship with her organization as a college student at Connecticut College through the University of Buenos Aires and another social sciences institution in 1995. And I will tell this story because it really communicates her energy level and her commitment to everything. So I go to the interview, I'm waiting in the lobby, Noreta who is under five feet, maybe five, eight, if she's lucky, rushes into the lobby and looks at me. And in 1995, an internship was not something that was happening in Argentina and she's like, I don't understand what you want to do. And I said, well, I'll do anything because I didn't say this, but I'm thinking you're a globally recognized human rights organization that I've learned about in my Spanish and social sciences classes for a long time. And I will do anything. And she then kind of assesses me, looks me up and down and says, dalle, which means, okay, and runs out. And I think, do I come back on Monday? And I came back on Monday and Wednesday for six months and fell in love with your organization. Didn't see Nora. She's got too many things to do. She was in the streets, but we truly bonded when I came back the next summer of 1996 and went on a 30 hour bus ride with her to a very important march in the north western part of Argentina about indigenous disappeared. It's an area that people don't go to from Buenos Aires and we just bonded. And that was it. I think she became not only my academic subject because I have my doctorate in Spanish and Portuguese, but she became a dear friend and ultimately like my surrogate grandmother. So when I found out that they were filming her in around 2018, I said I'd love to get involved and I didn't know what that meant. I think I was still in education, I was still in higher ed. I thought it would just be like promoting the movie, but now I have left education. I've gone from professor to producer. Wow. So both of you kind of holding different skills from different areas to make this film. Jason Nuretia says that early on when she joined this movement, that she didn't know anything about politics. And for decades, she says that looking back, she now realizes that it was a feminist movement, but she wasn't thinking about it that way necessarily at the time. Can you talk about the evolution of her as an activist? The fascinating thing about Nure and I guess all of the mothers of the disappeared bar, three or four of them, three or four of the more prominent ones is that she had no tertiary education. She grew up in a relatively comfortable world in the 1930s and 40s, a time of prosperity in Argentina. And so I guess the power of the collective was something that was very far from her reality. And stepping out to look for her son in 1977, and she met a lot of other women in the exact same scenario. They moved mountains to try and find their children. And while that never really happened in any concrete meaningful way, most of the disappeared have never been found. They did essentially topple a military regime. And so I think in Nure's case and in the case of a handful of the mothers, they chose to lean into that and understand, try and understand the limits of their own power, the power that they had created in the dictatorship. And for the most part, Nure has been involved in the major, political shifts in her country across 50 years. And in terms of the feminist movement and the fight for women's reproductive rights, that was a small seed that was planted in the 1980s, that grew and grew and grew. We just so happened to be filming her in 2018, when that became a mass movement and you started to see millions of people, mostly women on the streets, pushing for abortion or form. And very quietly, Nure had been accompanying that as an unbeknownst feminist for over 30 years. And it wasn't until it became a mass movement and the women around her encouraged her to see herself in that light, that she was able to start articulating what she had become. And feminist is just one of the many labels that she came to identify with. And yeah, it was an honor to be able to see that happen. And to see Nure put up on that pedestal where, not just as a symbol, as I said, but actually as an active part of a movement. May I add? Yeah. I'm so sorry. This was my dissertation. So she started when I met her in 1996, she would have never adopted the feminist label. The mod that I actually rejected it, they really caged their activism as a mother's movement, looking for their children. But I think it was through the 90s, through the 2000s, when a lot of other movements were happening worldwide. And Nure educated herself too. She ended up getting her degree from a university in her town, the University of Mourron in social psychology. So I think she also evolved as a person, regardless of the movements that she was helping. And I was not with her on the ground in 2018. And I was with her in the States doing tours, but yes, she talked about her activism. and her understanding of what the gendered politics and her country were in a very different way in 2018 than when I had met her in '96, '95. - So Jason, when you began this project, what was Nora's attitude about being filmed and having her story told? - She didn't want a bar of it. She had no interest in being in a documentary. Let alone one focusing solely on her. And we really had to prove ourselves. I went to her weekly protest in the plus and the master where the mothers have always protested. Essentially every Thursday for about three or four years. And that was an effort to sort of understand who she was and why she wasn't open to the idea of being involved in a film, but also trying to prove myself to her and show her that I really believed in her cause. And it was a great exercise because we got to know each other a lot better. And I think by the time we actually started filming, her guard was down and she trusted me and she knew that we could have a dynamic conversation always about what we were doing and what her limits were. And she was very involved in the process. - Sarah, how does this film connect differently to audiences Argentina versus audiences outside of Argentina? - Great. I was there for both our theatrical premiere and our festival premiere in Argentina. And I can tell you based on what's happening politically right now in their country, this movie is a cuffursus. It's a called "Arms." It is the memory of this incredible woman because she sadly passed in 2024 and May 30th. It's the annually, the dictatorship is commemorated on March 24th. And this past March 24th, they had posters of the movie and they did sketchings of our director, photography's picture of her, which is our poster for Encizcovia. And so clearly they want a icon. They want somebody to fight against this authoritarianism, this economic system. Outside of Argentina, it depends on where you are. What I have seen, I've taken it all over the country, both at film festivals and at universities. But what's happening in our country right now in the United States with ICE, with the shrinking of rights, with the, the lignit narcissism of some of our leaders, the gendered politics, it's playing out in real time. So people are moved, people come away wanting, it's really gratifying, I've taken it to the South. And 70-year-old ladies come up to me afterwards and they're like, I am a fan of Norita and I am going to this protest or I'm going to write my congressperson or I'm going to do something. So in both cases, it galvanizes, it encourages, it inspires. But I think for the Argentine population and South American general, it's obviously a personal story. They all live through these dictatorships in our country, we're seeing the writing on the wall in a lot of ways. So it's inspiring and it's making, and kids, what I think Jason said was excellent. It's giving students a real playbook of how to be an activist, right? And I talked about that in these talkbacks that I do after showing the movie with university students. And I really talk about, you need a collective. You can't be the Tiananmen Square young man in front of the tank, because you're going to get rolled over. You need a grassroots movement, you need communication, you need to be safe. So it's really incredible, I feel so proud of this movie. (upbeat music) - That was producer Sarah Schollkop, along with director Jason McNamara, discussing their film, Norita. Our final film is a short documentary called "Cutsuni People of the Lake". It's set in Bolivia, looking at the indigenous Uru community. For thousands of years, they lived around Lake Popo that once stretched for miles, but the effects of mining and climate change caused the lake to disappear nearly 10 years ago. Last year, the film won the Doc NYC short film, Grand Jury Prize. I spoke to its pair of directors, Michael Salama, and Gaston Zilberman. At the start of the film, we see a vast barren saltbed where the lake used to be. In the center of the frame is a disintegrating boat. I asked Michael to explain what we're looking at. - Yeah, so that's gonna be the dry lake bed of Lake Popo, which was the second largest lake in Bolivia. It's a Tetsu Lake Titicaca, which is the largest lake in Bolivia and South America. And about 10 years ago, it dried out completely, due to diversions for mining operations, that would be tin for agriculture, and also climate change induced drought. - And the people of the lake from the title, what is that community, describe that community for us? - So the Uru community is exactly, it's like they call themselves people of the lake, because they've been living for centuries, surrounding that lake on the lake, literally, on floating boats, like for weeks and hunting and fishing. And they have their main ancestral and identity connection is to the lake. They call themselves people of the lake, and the whole culture goes around it, but it disappeared, and we sometimes say that was stolen also. And that's what's about, right? How can they continue to be people of the lake with no lake now? - So Gaston, tell me how you and Michael came to the story. What was your background before venturing on this project? - So I was a documentary photographer traveling around Latin America and searching for stories related to climate issues and also human over development. And Michael was doing his undergrad thesis for Princeton University on water issues in Latin America. And that's when historian and photographer came together, we decided to do this short film, because we realized that there was so much to be told, and it was such a visual story, and it was just one powerful example of how communities around the world, not just indigenous, but almost always like, it's the most vulnerable ones, how they are affected by climate change and industrial pollution, because this wasn't just the drought that made the dry lake. It's also the whole mining area that diverted its headwaters and contaminated soils. - Michael, there's a prominent credit at the start of the film that acknowledges this film is made with the collaboration of the community. Can you tell me more about that collaboration and how they informed the process? - Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that collaboration is an integral to the process from literally day zero. We didn't even arrive in order to make a film. I arrived to do an oral history and archival history project about their relationship with this lake and how its disappearance has affected their identity, but also their political and economic standing in the region. And so it was always a collaboration in a sense that we met with the authorities and we presented to them what we wanted to learn and how we thought that learning that could help them materially. And so what they said is, well, one of the most important things for us is bringing this story to the world. And so Gaston and I had really just met at that time. Like, we hadn't worked together before. And so we had met in Bolivia and we kind of looked at our combined skill set and we said, maybe there's a film to be made here. Clearly this is not just a history project. This is a very urgent and timely pressing issue. Maybe we can do something that's deeper than just an academic thesis and some photographs, but we can create a film that, and luckily it has been successful in doing so, can get to the world. And so the community was really, really, what was important to them is that that global audience could be translated into material change on the ground. And so at every step, not just the production, but also the editing and the creation of the impact campaign within in contact with the authorities and heads of households. And also local advocacy groups that do legal work and environmental remediation in order to plan the stages of how this global audience and this global impact can be translated onto the ground. So it's really been asking them what are their needs and how can we use any funds we've raised any attention we're getting in order to address those needs. So guest on and, you know, making the images for this film, like I think of a moment where you stage some of these people of the lake in a rowboat on this salt bed. Obviously they can't, you know, longer fish or use a boat, like they used to talk to me about, you know, creating those images. So as Michael said, it was like really in collaboration. And we were like totally open to every morning, talking with the authority and saying, who could we interview today? Where can we go? And what do you think that with conversation, would you think that's going to be equal to have? And the last one of the last days of production, it was like, let's go into the lake because sometimes there rains, there's a little bit of water. And then it dries up completely. And although there's water, there's no lake because the soils are contaminated. And we kept on driving for hour and a half. And suddenly we stopped because we couldn't go any further because there was no water, but it was like, you know, it would sink, the car would sink. So we stopped right next to their old abandoned boats. Like literally they said, this one was mine, this one was mine. I didn't come here for five years now. And one of the guys, Lorenzio, which is our associate producer and also the, like the authority of the community said, I don't know if I'm going to come back here. So take a picture of me. And that's how kind of it started. And there were like a, I don't know, maybe 20 minutes, half an hour kind of time stopped for me in that way. Like it was a flow state in which things started happening. And we were with four of the community members. And suddenly other gets on the boat. And I was like, Oh, stay there. It's a great shot. You know, and it's like, and kind of organically, the four of them were on the boat. And one of them says to each other, start rowing. And I was like, wow. And that was like kind of the moment that I knew that that was the shot of a film that represented the best because of the surrealism that it looks like whatever it's not. And also what it represents for them. So it was kind of organically. And it wasn't the first time that they'd been in front of a camera. So they were also really into the project in understanding that it wasn't that we were helping them, but also they were helping themselves and much other communities through the possibility of sharing the story to the world. So they were really committed with this. So it was like pretty organically. How suddenly it was that. And well, that was also my, my college would say like, Hey, stay there for a little bit longer. So I could also do the stills and the, the recording. And I'm, I'm really happy that that's kind of the images. That go around the most because it's the most powerful for us. First, when we saw it, right, that when we like the feeling of being there and seeing that and saying like, wow, this is incredible how they are, haven't been there here for so long. They are here now. They don't know if they're going to come back, but what this represents. So I made my best to capture it on on to. Michael, tell me about the community today of their livelihood that they had known for generations is gone. How big a community is this and, and you know, what's happened to them since 2016 when the lake disappeared? Yeah. So the Udor Indigenous nation has communities. So there's three principal communities that are of Lake Popol that call themselves Quotsunian that have lived, like as he said, on these floating islands of reads. So these were native reads to the to the lake. And they would put them together in order to make floating homes. And so they lived that way for centuries. You can look back when the Spanish arrived, they said, Oh, there's these Udor's. They live on this lake in these floating islands and we can't reach them. But, you know, 10 years ago, when the lake disappeared, of course, they had to move to dry land. And they don't have land for agriculture. And so the main way that they sustain themselves unfortunately now is by working in those very mines that have diverted and contaminated the waters of Lake Popol. So that's a very dark, ironic reality that the men of the Udor community have to work in those same mines. There's also been a lot of out migration because of lack of food security and lack of job opportunities, because they used to sell the fish to local communities. And of course, they can't do that anymore. They used to eat the waterfowl. Of course, they can't do that anymore either. And so it's been a very dire economic and cultural situation. The three communities total about 1500 members between the three of them. That's Puyña Catinta Maria, Villaníac and Yapa Yapani, or the three Udor communities of Lake Popol. And they don't even have their own municipal status in the sense that they don't represent themselves in the regional government. They are part of the nearby municipalities. And that's another big point of advocacy that they're trying to reach that municipal independence. Gaston, you've been showing the film at festivals around the world. Have you had the chance to bring the film to Bolivia yet? Okay, so we are going to screen it in Oruro Film Festival, which is the biggest city in year to the lake next month. And that's a big one because there's a lot of people that really know those. A lot of people that when we were there, they were saying, "Oh, when I was little, I went to the lake to buy fish from the woods." And now there's no more. So it's going to be, we're really excited about that. And we all obviously sent the short film to them. But we're trying to do this winter, us screening in the community, to make it a little bit bigger than just sending the file, you know? And trying to make them, you know, they care about the movie being all around the world. But what they really care about is the film's success, bringing material, change to the community. And that's what our focus is now. We're now beginning stage five of help with the community. We made like through the film and the documentary, photography's that have been exhibited worldwide. We were able to fundraise two years in the project. It wasn't at the beginning. This was a no-budget project. It started. But well, now we have the possibility to bring this material change and funding a lot of family businesses that Michael is, was talking a little bit about that. You have the men that work in the mines, but there's a lot of family businesses that try, you know, to alternatives. And we're trying to fund the economic, sustainable development of the community with natural medicine, businesses, art crafts, that it's now the biggest income for the community. Also, school supplies, trying to make some grants for projects to build within the community and not be us, the ones that say, oh, you should do this. No, it's like those family businesses that already exist or that are like willing to exist to give that support. And that's what the community cares about, much more than the film itself. But we understand that the film is why we're able to do all this. So it's like a synergy, a really interesting synergy between the photography and the documentary and the material change and impact projects that we're carrying out now. Michael, you came to this from a background in academia. I wonder what you have found with the power of documentary storytelling that, you know, that is complementary or different from the training that you have as an academic. Absolutely. It's, I think, very complementary in it occupies a space that that academia always can't always occupy and that's really reaching a global audience. So I did write a history thesis about the Uru community, but unfortunately, I think only a couple of people I've ever read it and ever will read it, right? But, you know, whether it's the thousands or hopefully many more people who have seen Kotsuni have really been introduced to this topic. And it's not just that our, you know, 13 minute documentary is telling them everything that they need to know about the Uru's and like football. It's really that what we have created here is a very emotional, more so than informational portrayal of what this community is going through on a very personal and family level. And that is the loss of the epicenter of their cultural identity. And so by kind of hooking people in with that emotional story, we're able to have them ask, okay, like maybe we didn't answer every question, how exactly did the minds cause the lake disappear? But we have all those answers and we have people saying, okay, how can I learn? How can I contribute to be part of the solution? And then we say, okay, well, we have this impact project. Well, if you want to read more, you have all of this research that we've compiled. So in a way, you know, where academia is so important in understanding how we got to now, the role of documentary, like I said, it's not a history project, but very much a today project to get people to understand what academics have uncovered. And I think that those two things are extremely important. And then there's the importance of legal advocacy, which is also something we're trying to generate with on-the-ground lawyers and also international resources. So it's kind of all three of those things happening at the same time that I think are all invaluable to the process of building a building. a solution within the community. Well, Michael and Gaston, this film is extremely memorable for only being 30 minutes long. I thank you very much for the film and thanks for your time today. Thank you so much. That was our goal, making a short that really stays with people and doesn't answer a lot of questions, but brings more questions to it and gives you the possibility of thinking that this is just one example that happens all around the world. It's kind of a call to action, so we're really happy that to share this with broader audiences and thank you so much for the invitation. That was Gaston Zilberman with Michael Salama discussing their short documentary, "Cut Suni, People of the Lake." I want to thank all the filmmakers who joined me and thanks to my colleagues at the Ancler, especially segment producer Jen Lasky. If you need a holiday gift for a film lover, look up my new book, "Mando Documentary." Nelson George says, "It's like a giant wish list of films you can't wait to see. You can order it anywhere in the world, but not on Amazon, only from purenonfiction.net." Thanks to our team, Doc Voices writer Bella Racklin, series producer Hannah Nordenswan, and web designer cross-strategy. Our theme music is composed by Andre Williams and our executive producer is Rafael and A. Howson. I'm Tom Powers. Follow us on Instagram and visit our website at purenonfiction.net. [Music]