Filmmakers Collaborative

10/15/2025

10/15/2025

On a NEW episode of Making Media Now, Michael Azevedo speaks with Rick Goldsmith, director of the documentary Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink.

Rick’s film offers a clear-eyed look at the current state of journalism in the United States with a focus on the insidious threat from a secretive hedge fund that has put America’s free press at risk.

Alden Global Capital, operating in the shadows, has managed to upend countless local newsrooms in the past 15 years. But their profit-at-all-costs efforts have not gone un-checked.

This powerful, eye-opening 90-minute documentary tracks the courageous efforts of investigative reporter Julie Reynolds, Denver Post editorialist Chuck Plunkett and a handful of others, backed by the NewsGuild union, who go toe- to-toe, at great personal risk, with Wall Street interests in a battle to save local journalism across the United States.

The film is available for streaming and repeat broadcasts:
Streaming – From October 1st to December 31st, the film is available for free at PBS.org or the PBS app through The Roku Channel, Apple TV, Google Play or most smart TVs

Broadcast – check our website here for more dates and times, which we will be updating periodically. You can also check your local listings.

October 20th at 5pm PT/8pm ET, (and then 3 repeat airings that week) on the PBS World Channel broadcast everywhere, check your local listings to see if your local station carries the World Channel.

Joining host Michael Azevedo on this episode is Rick Goldsmith, the director of the documentary “Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink. Rick’s film offers a clear-eyed look at the current state of journalism in the United States with a focus on the insidious threat from a secretiv...

10/14/2025

"...Over more than 1,600 episodes, he engaged in raw and personal dialogues with a staggering array of comedians, artists and public figures. Among them were Robin Williams, Lorne Michaels, Louis C.K. and Barack Obama, who became the first sitting president to appear on a podcast when he was a guest in 2015.

For the podcast’s final episode, released Monday, Maron, 62, met again with Obama."

The comedian, actor, and former podcaster discusses his decision to bring “WTF” to a close after 16 years and interviewing its final guest, Barack Obama.

10/12/2025

"...Candy shined in smaller roles — in movies like Stripes, The Blues Brothers, National Lampoon's Vacation and Home Alone. But when he starred in the John Hughes films Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Uncle Buck, his combination of humor and heart took center stage — and made him an icon.

Director Colin Hanks assembled an impressive group of Candy's colleagues for the documentary, which is available on Prime Video. The entertainers featured in the documentary include Steve Martin, Macaulay Culkin, Bill Murray — and many of the comedy greats he came up with in Toronto's Second City theater and later the TV show SCTV, like Catherine O'Hara, Eugene Levy, Dave Thomas and Martin Short."

John Candy was one of the most beloved comedic actors of his time, with starring roles in Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Uncle Buck. His life and work are celebrated in a new Amazon Prime documentary by Colin Hanks, John Candy: I Like Me.

10/11/2025

"...During a career that lasted more than a half a century, Mr. Casaro produced some 2,000 posters, drawing praise from Hollywood heavyweights like Quentin Tarantino and Sylvester Stallone.

Yet despite his clout within the industry, few moviegoers knew his name. His work was largely unheralded, aside from a tiny 'Casaro' printed in the margins. In a 2021 interview with The New York Times, Mr. Casaro said he believed that the only director who put him in the end credits was Sergio Leone, for the poster promoting the star-studded 1984 mob epic 'Once Upon a Time in America.'..."

Few moviegoers knew his name, but directors like Sergio Leone, Sylvester Stallone and Quentin Tarantino considered his vivid work invaluable.

10/11/2025

"...Growing pains are to be expected for Weiss, a successful and charismatic operator who nonetheless has no experience running a TV news network, much less a newsroom as large as the one at CBS News."

As the ‘Free Press’ cofounder takes the helm at CBS News, all eyes are on its preeminent newsmagazine—inside and outside the building.

10/10/2025

Coming Soon: October 22-October 26

Produced by The Boston Globe, the GlobeDocs Film Festival celebrates and premieres new, acclaimed documentary films; bringing together filmmakers, award-winning journalists, and special guests from around the world.

In its eleventh year, the festival continues to spotlight vital stories and affirm Boston’s role as a hub for nonfiction film. Programming highlights diverse perspectives, amplifies BIPOC voices, and explores pressing topics across science and technology, public health, investigative journalism, the arts, LGBTQ+ issues, sports, education, racial injustice, politics, and more.

Each festival screening is followed by a journalist-led conversation and Q&A with the documentary filmmakers and special guests. The festival offers a robust five days of in-person screenings across three Boston cinemas, as well as a simultaneous twelve-day virtual festival.

The GlobeDocs Film Festival celebrates and premieres new, acclaimed documentary films; bringing together filmmakers, award-winning journalists, and special guests from around the world.

10/10/2025

"...DC Comics president and publisher Jim Lee said that the company “will not support AI-generated storytelling or artwork,” assuring fans that its future will remain rooted in human creativity. “Not now, not ever, as long as [SVP, general manager] Anne DePies and I are in charge,” Lee said during his panel at New York Comic Con on Wednesday, likening concerns around AI dominating future creative industries to the Millennium bug scare and NFT hype.

'People have an instinctive reaction to what feels authentic. We recoil from what feels fake. That’s why human creativity matters,' said Lee. 'AI doesn’t dream. It doesn’t feel. It doesn’t make art. It aggregates it.'..."

“People have an instinctive reaction to what feels authentic.”

10/09/2025

🎙️ In this clip from our latest episode, director Clay Tweel breaks down one of the most chilling revelations from The Bitter Pill—a documentary about the legal fight against Big Pharma and the devastating opioid crisis in West Virginia.

📧 Internal emails between pharmaceutical reps and distributors?
They were joking about addiction.
And yes—someone even floated the idea of oxycodone for kids.

⚖️ This is what happens when greed takes priority over lives.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation now: https://fcmakingmedia.podbean.com/e/director-clay-tweel-delivers-the-bitter-pill-one-mans-battle-against-predatory-pharma-companies/

10/09/2025

"...Sora, a free app on iPhones, has been as entertaining as it is has been disturbing. Since its release, lots of early adopters have posted videos for fun, like phony cellphone footage of a raccoon on an airplane or fights between Hollywood celebrities in the style of Japanese anime.

Yet others have used the tool for more nefarious purposes, like spreading disinformation, including fake security footage of crimes that never happened.

The arrival of Sora, along with similar A.I.-powered video generators released by Meta and Google this year, has major implications. The tech could represent the end of visual fact — the idea that video could serve as an objective record of reality — as we know it. Society as a whole will have to treat videos with as much skepticism as people already do words."

Welcome to the era of fakery. The widespread use of instant video generators like Sora will bring an end to visuals as proof.

10/08/2025

Tell us again how "brutal" your day at the office was?

"Love+War" chronicles Pulitzer Prize-winning Lynsey Addario’s ascent in the male-dominated world of conflict photography. But her work is dangerous.

She’s been kidnapped twice while on assignment in war zones — a cost she must wrestle with each time she leaves her husband and two sons to go on assignment.

Behind the camera, Addario is torn between her unwavering commitment to the essential work of journalism and the powerful, competing demands of motherhood, grappling with what it truly means to follow your calling when it threatens everything you love.

"Love+War" airs on National Geographic on November 6 at 9/8c. It will be available on Disney+ starting November 7.

Love+War chronicles Pulitzer Prize-winning Lynsey Addario’s ascent in the male-dominated world of conflict photography. But her work is dangerous. She’s been...

10/08/2025

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW

🎙️ On this episode of Making Media Now, director Clay Tweel joins host Michael Azevedo to discuss his powerful new PBS documentary The Bitter Pill—now streaming through Dec 10 on PBS digital.

📍 Set in Cabell County, West Virginia—where 1 in 5 babies are born addicted to opioids—the film follows attorney Paul Farrell Jr. as he takes on Big Pharma in a fight for justice, accountability, and healing.

⚖️ It’s a deeply personal story of resilience from a town at the heart of America’s opioid crisis.

🎧 Listen now for an inside look at the making of the film and the people fighting back: https://fcmakingmedia.podbean.com/e/director-clay-tweel-delivers-the-bitter-pill-one-mans-battle-against-predatory-pharma-companies/