documentaries

Colin Kaepernick will be featured in a documentary series produced by ESPN Films as part of a first-look deal with The Walt Disney Co. The deal between Kaepernick’s production arm, Ra Vision Media, and The Walt Disney Co. was announced Monday. The partnership will focus on telling scripted and unscripted stories that explore race, social […]

NEW YORK (AP) — The History channel says former President Bill Clinton will help shape and be a part of an upcoming documentary series on the American presidency. During an announcement of programming plans on Thursday, the network said the series will “explore the history of the American presidency and the struggle for a more […]

Overdoses from heroin, fentanyl and other opioids are the leading cause of accidental death in North Carolina. A new WRAL Raleigh documentary, Finding A Fix, airing tonight at 7 on WRAL and on WRALdocumentary.com, looks at how North Carolina’s efforts to combat opioid addiction have changed and expanded since the station’s looked at the issue in a 2017 documentary.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — PBS will air a documentary on EGOT winner Rita Moreno, the network announced Monday. “Rita Moreno: The Girl Who Decided to Go for It” will chart her decades-long career. It will feature interviews, archival footage, reenactments of Moreno’s childhood and animation. Norman Lear and Lin-Manuel Miranda have partnered to produce the project, […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Library of Congress will begin presenting an award named for Ken Burns, who elevated the craft of historical documentaries. Officials announced on Tuesday the creation of the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film. The annual award will recognize a filmmaker whose documentary uses original research and compelling narrative to […]

Licensed to Pill is a one-hour special that exposes doctors betraying patients by prescribing addictive opioids to line their own pockets. It follows up on extensive investigations aired over the past year, during which time a federal raid, charges against doctors and action by Congress were all realized.

Compelling stories address issues of the day, including gun violence, climate change and immigration.

If you’re looking for documentaries these days, they’re hard to miss. Once considered more medicinal than entertaining and consigned to high-brow places like PBS and art house theaters, documentaries are scattered across the film and TV spectrum, as well as online portals like Facebook Watch or YouTube Red and on video streaming apps like go90. Even mighty NBC is getting in on the act with a documentary on Martin Luther King Jr. airing Saturday night.

Fusion TV, the Doral, Fla.-based TV network that is part of the Fusion Media Group, is cutting nearly half of its documentary staff, laying off six members of a 13-person group.

HBO has promoted Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller to executive vice presidents of HBO Documentary and Family Programming, from their current SVP roles. They will replace longtime Documentary Films President Sheila Nevins, who’s leaving the network in early 2018.

After almost 40 years, she has reels of memorable film, a pile of awards and plenty of perspective on the current battle of the sexes. With a storytelling style that grabs viewers by the throat, Nevins helped change the image of documentaries from stodgy to provocative. And she helped HBO amass such a pile of Emmys, Peabodys and Oscars.