Filmmakers Collaborative

11/19/2025

“...'Eddington,' 'One Battle After Another' and 'After the Hunt' focus on young characters navigating the current political climate. The depictions aren’t always flattering."

“Eddington,” “One Battle After Another” and “After the Hunt” focus on young characters navigating the current political climate. The depictions aren’t always flattering.

11/19/2025

"...Each year, Frontline Features will either commission or come in at the early stages of three to five doc projects — both features and shorts. Each film will premiere at a festival, go on the fest circuit, and then have a theatrical run of at least two weeks."

The new banner will be led by Raney Aronson-Rath, an Oscar-winning producer who has expanded the PBS Frontline series

11/19/2025

"...Former child actresses, as well as teenage girls around the country, have posted photos of themselves at 15 years old after journalist Megyn Kelly seemed to downplay the youth of Jeffrey Epstein's victims on her podcast.

In a discussion with NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon on 'The Megyn Kelly Show' on Nov. 12, Kelly stated that she knows 'somebody very close to this case" who 'told me from the start [...] that Jeffrey Epstein, in this person's view, was not a pe*****le.'

'He was into the barely legal type, like, he liked 15-year-old girls,' Kelly continued. 'I'm not trying to make an excuse for this, I'm just giving you facts — that he wasn't into, like, 8-year-olds. But he liked the very young teen types that could pass for even younger than they were, but would look legal to a passer-by.'

After commentator Megyn Kelly seemed to downplay the youth of Jeffrey Epstein's victims, former child actresses and current teenagers took to social media to express outrage.

11/18/2025

"...It’s difficult to swallow that school shootings are simply part of life in America, disasters that are rare, but for which precautions must still be taken.

'Thoughts and Prayers,' a new documentary premiering Nov. 18 on HBO, has done the swallowing, and in just under 90 minutes gives an intensive tour of the dystopian morass of military-grade preparedness drills, innovations in school-hardening technology, and children who have accepted that any day a gunman could massacre them and their friends, and forces the viewer to digest it."

"Thoughts and Prayers," a new HBO documentary, examines the culture and commerce that has emerged around hardening schools against active shooters.

11/18/2025

Haven’t listened to our most recent episode yet?

🎙️ In this powerful clip, director Jon Shenk shares the overwhelming global response to In Waves and War—now streaming on Netflix. In Waves and War

💥 From veterans watching it with their families…
🚒 To firefighters screening it in break rooms…
🌏 To strangers in Japan and Korea moved by the story…

In Waves and War is opening hearts and starting conversations around trauma, healing, and what it means to come home.

🎧 Full episode now live: https://fcmakingmedia.podbean.com/e/in-waves-and-war-explores-potential-of-psychedelics-in-treating-ptsd/

11/17/2025

"We've done this in public broadcasting because it's the only place that would give us ten years to do a deep dive," says Ken Burns of "The American Revolution."

"Because the marketplace actually insists on something quick and dirty. And we can't do that because it is not honest to what actually transpired in the revolution."

Filmmakers Ken Burns and Sarah Botstein discuss their new PBS series “The American Revolution” that expands and updates the story of America's founding ahead...

11/17/2025

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW

🎙️ On this episode of Making Media Now, host Michael Azevedo speaks with award-winning filmmaker Jon Shenk, co-director of In Waves and War, now streaming on Netflix.

⚓ The film follows the emotional journey of three Navy SEALs as they battle the psychological scars of war—and turn to powerful psychedelics in a desperate search for healing.

🧠 With stunning animation, raw interviews, and groundbreaking research from Stanford’s Brain Stimulation Lab, In Waves and War is a deeply moving exploration of trauma, brotherhood, and the courage to come home to yourself.

🎧 Hear the full story behind the film and the mission to change how we talk about mental health and recovery in the military.

🔗 Listen now: https://fcmakingmedia.podbean.com/e/in-waves-and-war-explores-potential-of-psychedelics-in-treating-ptsd/

11/17/2025

"...the Pope held court at the Vatican with an audience of filmmakers, actors and executives, offering calming and encouraging words about the importance of movies and even the challenges facing the business right now."

Pope Leo XIV Talks Movies To A-List Crowd At Vatican: Read His Speech

11/14/2025

“...'The American Revolution' is not Burns’s most innovative film; its techniques and rhythms are familiar from 'The Civil War' and its successors. It is not his most moving; that title likely goes to his 18-hour heartbreaker, 'The Vietnam War.'

But it is perhaps his best-timed, and not only because the country’s 250th anniversary is coming next year but also because Americans are again passionately and even violently divided, over matters including history itself.

It arrives as public broadcasting, along with its mission to speak to every part of America, has been perhaps mortally wounded.

It comes in an era of political violence and cultural war over American history, with deeply divided camps claiming the mantle of 1776."

In Ken Burns’s newest documentary, the war for independence was also a civil war. Amid a bitter fight over history, its timing feels urgent.

11/14/2025

"...Authorities said Tren de Aragua 'terrorists' had taken over the building. A ProPublica investigation found little evidence to back up the government’s claims. For the first time, the Venezuelans arrested in a Chicago raid are telling their stories."

Authorities said Tren de Aragua “terrorists” had taken over a Chicago building. A ProPublica investigation found little evidence to back up the government’s claims. The Venezuelans arrested in the raid tell their stories.

11/13/2025

"...Spotify does not mark A.I.-generated content as such, and the company has said that it is improving its A.I. filters without defining what qualifies as an A.I. song.

In the past year, the platform has removed more than seventy-five million “spammy tracks” from its service, but countless unmarked A.I. tracks remain, and many listeners can’t tell the difference.

In one recent study, participants could successfully discern A.I.-generated music from human-made music only fifty-three per cent of the time."

Aspiring musicians are churning out tracks using generative artificial intelligence. Some are topping the charts.

11/13/2025

"...Does a book with such a narrow scope have much of an audience? I’m not sure. Robertson, who died in 2023, already has a memoir, 2016’s Testimony, that covers his life and career up until The Last Waltz, still his most famous and definitive project.

I don’t know if there’s a big market for a second Robertson autobiography. What I do know is that the audience for Insomnia is me.

I am a fan of Robbie Robertson, and I am a fan of Martin Scorsese. More importantly, I am a fan of Robbie Robertson and Martin Scorsese as pals, back when they lived together during tumultuous times in their marriages.

They subsequently indulged in bad (and fun!) behavior for a few years while managing their respective personal and professional crises."

A new posthumous memoir by Robertson, ‘Insomnia,’ details his relationship with the director from the late 1970s until their final collaboration on ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’